Valley of the Shadows & Surrender: A Novel Duet

All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Rochelle L. Holt

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Contents

Valley of the Shadows

Two Women in the Moon

Through the Window

Magic Beyond Prayer

As Dreams Are Always

Uncle

Glazing a Muse

I Have Been Asleep

The Writer

Heart of the Maze

Legend in Her Own Time

Bad Luck

Her Role

Who Can Tell Us How?

A Woman Asked

Naming of Reasons

I Believe

Admonition

Book of Shadows. Book of Dreams.

Cold Mirror

Gratitude

After Fire & Water

As We Dip Consciously

The 5ist State

Whisper in my Ear

Comfort

The Wish

Should I Love Myself?

Tolling Bell

Surrender

Ashes in Rosy Dusk

Whippoorwill

Tragic Dove

Constellating Psalm

A Lost Dream

Before We Died

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

Song of the Stone

Beyond Flesh & Bone

Naming of Feathers from Sparrow’s Wings

Expecting No Reply

Solitude Serenade

Obsession

Bleating Hearts

To Grasp Brass Ring

Between Silence and Scream

From This Ultimate Dim Thule

Variation of Distant Call

Secret Parts

Separate Lives on a Treadmill

The Six-Petalled Dance

Tolling Bell

Annunciation

Fated

From Bleating Ewe

Tragic Love

Loss or Lost

Imperfect Worlds

Done With Serving Time

Where Have They Blown?

Spirit with Two Minds

This Longing

Dangling Fame

No More Caravan

Idol Worship

Acknowledgements

Valley of the Shadows

Two Women in the Moon

After my daughter read a chapter in the rudimentary autobiography I decided to attempt because of an article in O, The Oprah Magazine, she said, It’s not bad. But, Ginny’s blue eyes stared off into space.

Lacks some imagery and certain details about dad, she paused. But, I think you should continue. The class will..

I’m not a writer, I responded, defensively. I don’t see how a six week course in poetry could improve something I’m only doing for you, me and possibly a grandchild.

You always said, ‘If you’re going to do something, do it right.’ Ginny grinned as she tilted her head to the left, reminding me of her father, Holmes.

Is that why you nixed your birthday party by leaving on Mother’s Day? I tried to mask disapproval of her upcoming move with a slight smile.

Mom, you know Dick has no say over what the company tells him to do. Neither of us is looking forward to living in Buenos Aires for a year. But, you could come visit. She hesitated. Why don’t we celebrate both of the occasions tomorrow or this weekend? What’s the difference?

I smiled as we sing-sang together, If you’re going to do something, do it right.

Two weeks later, my only daughter, inherited twenty years before when she was barely three

(after I moved in with Holmes Doyle six months to the day his first wife died of cancer), was gone with her husband to another continent.

After that sentence in my notebook, reserved, more or less, for my autobiography, I thought Ginny was right. Maybe I did need the course. I was sorry I’d so quickly rejected her idea.

A few days later when I was dusting my desk, I found an envelope with my name on it. It was stuck behind some papers. Inside was a paid registration for Introduction to Writing Poetry, a six-session class held on Tuesday evenings. Continuing Education at Edison Community College. I shook my head in amusement. Like father like daughter.

For some reason, I was curious about Marya Brooks’ age from the first time she walked into the classroom. I was glad she wasn’t a really young woman, but she had a youthful complexion which didn’t look made-up. Her dark hair was cut in an old-fashioned yet becoming Twenties bob. Her large wide-set eyes seemed even more pronounced because of the green eye shadow. However, I (and perhaps others in class) was taken aback by her attire.

May in Ft. Myers isn’t usually a hot and muggy month, but Florida weather had turned from spring to summer almost in a day. There were eight students waiting for our instructor—a variety of ages with three women who seemed to be in my fifties bracket. We were dressed casually, not shorts but cool cotton slacks and short-sleeve tops, except for the one man (thirties?) who wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up but tucked into faded cut-off denim shorts.

Marya Brooks entered, rather dramatically, about five after seven that evening. She was wearing a red gauzy cotton caftan that hit her at mid-calf, revealing jute sandals tied at the ankles and cherry toenail polish. On her thin wrists several gold bracelets jangled, and there were three or four exotic rings prominent on her long slender fingers. Her dangling coppery earrings looked to be Egyptian or Mexican.

She didn’t tell us too much about herself except that her books had been published annually for more than thirty years. Limited editions, she said before rifling through some papers.

She then read The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes and two other known classic poems. I remembered Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson from high school.

We’ll be reading the contemporary icons later. Marya Brooks coughed, a sound that reminded me of Holmes who still had his smoker’s hack fifteen years after he’d quit.

For now, I’d like you to choose a poem by a classic master to imitate as best you can for next week.

To illustrate her point, she passed out Sea Whisper, a poem she’d created to fulfill her own assignment. That impressed me.

The poem follows Hughes’ pattern, even place, to a certain extent, she said.

I’ve slept with waves:

I’ve slept with waves younger than the earth before mud’s birth writhing clay to rise out of liquid flow.

My bones like wings of water have sailed.

Eye danced Black Sea with shadows at night. Eye ate seaweed and shells from Mediterranean. Eye laughed as Tranquillity fell from the moon. Eye bled the breath of Caribbean when Christopher impaled islands for Isabelle before Cortez plundered Maya to claim dusk.

I’ve slept with waves: innocent, dawning waves.

My bones like wings of water have sailed.

It was only an hour class so we didn’t really discuss the poem thoroughly. However, I was dazzled by her originality of imitation, in spite of the almost line-for-line precision. As far as rhyme and subject matter went, even that was, oddly enough, not a parody, but a rhapsody to the poet. I knew a little about poetry, because Ginny had taken a course once at the U of Illinois.

I chose Edna St. Vincent Millay from the handouts, a poet I remembered from senior English in high school. Neither Holmes nor I ever went to college which is why we were thrilled when our daughter earned a B.A. even if it was in Spanish, not exactly Holmes’ favorite language.

Ginny has her father’s twinkling blue eyes and dimpled smile, just what drew me to him the first time I saw Holmes in downtown Chicago. He was in the Canine Corps then but soon promoted after only two years to the detective division when he and his partner Hap solved a brutal murder of twin boys right before we were married.

Holmes wasn’t as tall as John Wayne, his idol, but he sauntered the same way as the movie star I also admired, even though he wasn’t my hero. Holmes and Hap used to have coffee every morning at the cafe where I was a cashier on Van Buren which is how we met.

Lucky there was a full moon last night when I decided to complete my assignment early this morning. Again I saw for only the second time what Ginny said she sees every month. I’d only been aware of the man in the moon never a woman or two. But, the sight was inspiring.

Two Women in the Moon

I saw two women in the moon while walking in the dawn; one was smiling, one was not as mist covered the lawn.

The air was as cool as their smile with sky a mauve palette.

I listened for the cry of geese, echoing clarinet.

Where is line between life and death, constant haunting shadow?

I heard twin sister ask other in mystical tableau.

Clouds drift then float in morning dark or like waves of new light.

Are dreams as real as the day and elusive as sight?

I was relieved that Marya Brooks didn’t seem to be an overly-critical teacher. We were told to hand in our work anonymously, meaning typed and without our names on any pages. Enough copies for everyone. Our instructor said that preserved anonymity and enhances objectivity for discussion. She went on at length about avoiding cliches and using new figures of speech. She said she wasn’t fond of archaic words like "tableau which might be construed as easy-rhyme with shadow." I cringed as she wrote the words on the board. I knew I had a habit of easy rhyme.

For the third class, she told us to bring in some contemporary poems. Be prepared to say what you like about the work of at least two poets.

She also gave us our assignment for the fourth class. Return to some novel you’ve read. Transfer thought and emotion into a poem, she instructed, adding, I won’t be reading an example, because I don’t want to influence your own lyrical interpretation.

I was glad she gave us forewarning since I hadn’t read a book in a while. I don’t know why. I used to read fiction when Holmes was alive. After he died, about two years ago, I just stopped. I started subscribing to magazines like Travel & Leisure, even though I gave most of them unread to Ginny and Dick. They’re always flying somewhere—Chicago, New York, and now…

I still get O though I only watch Oprah a few times a week, because now I volunteer in the gift shop at the nearby hospital every Thursday afternoon. I still read the newspaper almost cover to cover even if The News Press isn’t fit for lining birdcages, to quote Holmes. And, I still pick up the Chicago Tribune every Sunday morning just because he used to read it from cover to cover for hours.

Since I know nothing about contemporary poets, I went to the library even though I had to ask a child to help me with the computer. I prefer my relic typewriter in spite of Ginny’s insisting I should buy a laptop or at least get e-mail.

If I had e-mail how would I know whether everything was really fine with her? I need to hear her voice for that. Although, she says there’s even a way to use the computer for that too. Guess I’ll finally read that novel she gave me a few years back. I look at it often and say I will, but now I have a reason to pick up Ann Patchett’s The Patron Saint of Liars. Wish I’d watched the film when it was on TV.

Through the Window

I don’t know why I agreed to take over Cheryl’s course except she was a former student about five years ago when I was still leading private writing workshops.

I’ve been accepted at Yaddo, she told me as I grit my teeth and congratulated her over the phone.

It’s only for six weeks, she paused. Both the course and my stay in Saratoga Springs, I mean. Besides, then I can attend the IWWG conference in June at Skidmore.

I said yes, because I wanted Cheryl to get off the phone. Her whining voice was annoying. I’ve almost become a hermit since Carla died. I don’t get many calls either. Now that I’ve been to Jamaica and back, I’m gathering more materials for obi. Voodoo, black witchcraft, call it what you might.

You see, I’ve lived my almost seventy years as a docile and almost goody-two-shoes Pisces until I visited by myself the island Carla never wanted to see. Only now, three years after her fatal stroke, do I feel almost purged of grief, ready to contact a possibly hidden darker side… I’ve returned to writing in my journal but only to strengthen this new determination to do something about a lifetime without honors, awards, recognition, commercial publication.

Eventually, I may burn the damn thing, but at this time the journal is again rather therapeutic.

Almost three-quarters of a century filled with windows looking on the same scene in different cities at different ages as the same trees metamorphose slightly, elm into red maple into tall pine into pecan waving to apple trees whose crowns like umbrellas open to half-eaten cores discarded on grass by greedy squirrels, until one winter of countless storms before the bent branches transform into talking palm talking not to her, still watching limbs whisper to each other or the morning doves coo plaintively beneath light disappears into dusk. Yes, she rocks like grandmother in front of the view: portrait timeless, first painted in Chicago on second floor of brownstone with pebbled prairie for lawn before kudzu climbed bushes in Holly Springs then Birmingham behind crippled Vulcan on hill until manicured carpet in suburb money-green and cleaner than the sod clover smothered with weeds tangled in southern place once stomped by Seminole then annihilated by sentry of soldiers who still have no use for deer, rabbit, swan. She’s always looking out the window that stares into other eyes closed like cement blocks or bricks lidding sockets once open to blue or gray skies and wondering how a human can travel so many miles by bus, car, plane, subway, train across a country wider than a young girl’s wildest dream only to end up nothing at all like Malinche or Sacajawea but blinking at same small square turning cool or chill right before the veil of night when owl hoots to shadows in the pine as she screams silently inside herself because of her dead longing to leave earth and the same scene outside window for umpteen years, rocking in the breeze and watching grass grow unless she wills the departure of those who continue to impede her fame…

I’ve subscribed to Poets & Writers since I was in my forties. Often, I ask myself why. Years ago, before it was fashionable, I earned a Master of Fine Arts in

Poetry from the prestigious Writers Workshop in Iowa City. I’ve had hundreds of poems published in magazines, albeit not the right ones, not the top periodicals that count like The New Yorker, American Poetry Review or fill in the blank.

I’ve kept myself abreast of trends and changed my poetic style to be modern. I’ve followed the careers of the top poets in this country; but, I’m angry, no doubt, bitter because my work is as good as Ana Angel, the pseudo-Mexican who married a Brit in Puerta Vallarta and is now the senora of two countries. I’m better than Don George, that young fellow, who just won the Pulitzer for his first volume of poems. He’s still in his twenties, wet behind the ears.

Ana has her own poetry band, la de da. Her hubby is an architect. So, why did she just receive the McArthur Fellowship, a tidy sum of $50,000. annually for the next twenty years?

HIS LUCK

I have come back a dispossessed wizard, walking through gray fog, fearless before dawn; chanting prayers, I tap hickory stick not sword zigzag-sways alligator from tan fawn: myself, heron and egret, guarding duck. A daughter like this is Cancer’s firstborn. I am his luck…

I have climbed out and off armed tattoo, coasting over strange guarded blue eyes that drown magic wand pitying view until curse shatters forgiveness to rise rainbow after storm created by Puck. A daughter like this in mirror of sky, I am his luck.

Luck has nothing to do with Ana’s fate! Tomorrow, Thursday afternoon at 4 P.M. I begin obeah with the spider I trapped. I’ve lost count of how many jobs I’ve held, or else I stopped counting after eighty. I started working in an air freight office the summer I was fourteen and lied about my age. In my advanced years, I should be where Ana is.

HER PRIZE

She may ride out like Godiva hunting for chocolate in amber leaves on red pony named Apocrypha neighing away from doves cling to eaves, because her flesh is hot and needs ice. Naked woman like that is rider never grieves. I’d be her prize.

She may ride out on wind to a star with long ebony hair tangled in rain falling on shiny hubcaps of sports car; she might be whispered insane on hoof beats drumming dark advice.

Naked woman like that holding night with rein—

I’d be her prize.

Ana, you’ve received enough prizes, including the Guggenheim, which I’ve applied for annually since I was fifty, twenty years after you received your award the first time you submitted these two poems. In less than a decade you’re famous. Your books have been published by Norton & Co. whereas mine have been released by independent presses in editions rarely over one-hundred copies by Lunchroom Press, Chiron Review, King’s Estate.

Now, it’s time for you to become my prize!

The wax doll could be the Angel’s twin. I even painted a mole on her high cheekbone. I made a dress for her out of desert blue velvet, the same as Ana wore on Booknotes when she was interviewed by, of all people, Joyce Carol Oates. Not many people know the prolific novelist is also a poet, but I don’t feel threatened by her. She’s been famous for ages. Besides, I read somewhere that Oates gave up poetry for plays which are still being produced in Princeton.

Ana has always looked stunning. She wears snakeskin boots, imitation, I hope, peeking out from under her ankle-length dress. I located a similar faux fabric for the booties of her miniature likeness, the voodoo doll I’ll pierce tomorrow with a needle sharpened by fire. Then, I’ll set the Angel’s left arm ablaze, most carefully, in the garage until the fingers that pluck her guitar melt away. I’ll save the spider though for Silvia Bells-in-the-Feathers.

Mindpower. That’s what I’m aiming for to slow down the competition. Five major poets hold the reins of fame and fortune. Now is the hour to dethrone them all, in my fashion. I’ve been patient for long enough. I’ve been kind and nurturing as a woman who taught for over forty years in several states. Where is my crown? Where are my accolades?

Magic Beyond Prayer

In the third class, at first I felt embarrassed for bringing in a poem by Judith Viorst from How did I get to be 40 & other atrocities. But, when I explained that I was drawn to the humor in her poems, Marya (that’s what our instructor told us to call her) smiled and nodded as though she too appreciated Viorst’s style.

It’s not high art, Marya said, but truthful and very appealing. A person can learn a lot about irony by studying Judith Viorst’s work.

After I read the satiric poet’s Twenty Questions, Marya actually applauded. I was relieved since she’d not minced her negative opinion of a poem by Jimmy Carter which June, the lady who sits next to me, brought in as one of her favorite contemporaries. She always wears the same goldfish earrings.

Verse, Marya said, Or to quote the late Maya Angelou, ‘poesy.’ Was she referring to Carter’s poems?

I was glad nobody asked our teacher to elaborate since she’d already given us the elements of real poetry which included images that link form with content. I knew then that Ginny would be proud of me for not exchanging my registration for another course after the first poetry class.

I was still plodding through my autobiography, for whatever it was worth, but with a little more enthusiasm thanks to Marya Brooks.

That evening I’d also brought in a poem by Sandra Hochman, because my daughter had given me Vaudeville Marriage when Holmes and I were going through a difficult period, regarding what to do about his mother who had lung cancer. Actually, we were having major disagreements. Our daughter was then finishing her freshman year at Chicago Circle.

Holmes wanted to bring Sarah down to Florida to live with us. I was pushing for a care center in Chicago since she still had sisters living nearby in the same neighborhood on the South side.

Anyway, Ginny inserted a bookmark in Hochman at a poem titled The Swimming Pool. I knew she was well aware that I spent more than half the week there, even after we relocated to the Gulf Coast, a decision made by the toss of a quarter. I won yet often wonder if instead we should have gone to Phoenix as Holmes wanted to after his first heart attack in the middle of a Chicago blizzard when he’d gotten off the night shift.

Ginny wasn’t at all happy about the move south; she was a junior at Kelly High at the time. She didn’t want to leave her friends. Of course, she eventually got over it, but our courteous and respectful daughter transformed into a rebellious beast at Cypress High which I attributed partially to the move. Thank heaven she returned to her former sweet self upon graduating.

Of course, Holmes didn’t want her to go back to Chicago, but she received a partial scholarship from the University of Illinois. Nothing will change my mind, Ginny said, adamantly like her father, and that’s where she went. I guess she was right since she met Dick there. Now they’re down in South America.

Marya Brooks seems equally chameleon, not so much in personality, which she keeps guarded, but in her appearance. She looks different in each class. For the novel-into-poem evening, she wore all white—a gauzy long-sleeved Indian top over what I still refer to as pedal-pushers though now they’re called capris. Her jewelry was turquoise (earrings, pendant necklace, bracelets, rings.) Ginny has insisted I give details about course and instructor which is why I’ve become more observant, of late.

After our anonymous homework poems were distributed, Marya said she’d begin the recitation. I held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t receive my poem. But, then she started reading Magic Beyond Prayer as I nonchalantly focussed on another student.

Water will always seek out its own.

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

Some say the spring was blessed like holy spirit, because a child was healed, delivered from rose, wed to two men, her daughter she gave Son, whose first love returned to him as music mending his broken heart, a shattered stone, healed to renew by same drowning water. When tragedy led Wilson to town called Habit, matter-of-fact beauty, impermanent Rose, wed him for sake of Cecilia not son: woman’s logic is rhythm of music, Mother’s duty to bare, resurrect a stone for sake of earth, twin, human nature since Martha, Mary’s sister, was friend for Son, cleansed blood off and from petals of rose, so blind, deaf and doubting could hear music, magic beyond prayer in old-time religion gone, when all churches worship a literal Son, not truth of transient, ephemeral rose, original meaning of being catholic, which, of course, includes sister birthing son, mindless or full of reason, who knows? until eternity in life is done.

Marya paused then praised the authenticity of translated plot, adding she was quite familiar with the novel. "However, the poem is one sentence. There’s no punctuation. This would work well if the original tale was stream-of-con-sciousness. For instance, Virginia Woolf s The Waves."

There was little acknowledgement from any of us regarding that allusion until our teacher defined the term. "A rendering of the continuous flow of images that unconsciously run through anyone’s mind.

Better to say in the third line, ‘Wed to two men, she gave her daughter to Son,’ our instructor explained, as inverting phrases and words is indicative of a poetry that belongs to another long-ago generation. She was quiet for a moment. Then, you could start the fourth line with ‘His first love.’

Again, Marya became pensive as a student interrupted to praise the subtle double meaning of’ephemeral rose’ towards the end of the poem. I didn’t dare look around June to see who was speaking for fear I’d give myself away as the writer.

Yes, the reader wonders whether Rose will vanish forever just as those who worship icons in a literal sense, Marya explained.

I volunteered to read next, because I had another poem in front of me about a novel written by the same author. Now what are the odds of that happening?

PARSIFAL IS DEAD. That is the end of the story. The Magician’s Assistant by Ann Patchett

Dearest Sabine,

Love is magic, new deck of cards, your trick hands, commanding each ace from out of suit, not as my assistant but architect.

Love is magic, new deck of cards, your trick, because you understand arithmetic: addition, division, fraction, square root.

Love is magic, new deck of cards, your trick hands, commanding each ace from out of suit.

Only you and Phan flow with illusion, never begging truth in shadow of lies, my invented armor from childhood past, like palming off an egg out of left ear transforming Guy Fetters to Houdini. You intuit compassion and are wise, even when alliance shatters the mirror.

Three ghosts in winter memories can vanish what yearning discovered and found. I killed father to fulfill mother’s wish; three ghosts in winter memories banish grief, lonely suffering, a broken dish rabbit might conceal in silent snow sounds. Three ghosts in winter memories can vanish what yearning discovered and found.

You are Sabine Parsifal, magician, whose spirit releases my tragic twin. love forever,

Parsifal & Phan

Alice, one of the most outspoken students in the class, removed her dark glasses and said, I really don’t see the point of this exercise. How does it help anyone to write a poem?

There was a dangerous silence before Marya answered, strongly but with a hint of a smile. A poem evolves from anything and anywhere. To translate one genre into another is to hone memory so that a writer never loses sight of substance tied to emotion which is the purpose of every poem not to mention theme.

That was a lot for me to digest, but Alice put her trifocals back on and remained quiet for the remainder of the class.

Next week I’ll begin to share a few poems by the ‘pop stars’ of contemporary poetry, Marya said, her right eyebrow arching, an idiosyncrasy I noted every time she attempted to conceal a certain disdain, perhaps even jealousy, regarding the pop stars as she referred to the top poets in the country. Of course, not many of us were aware of who they might be.

However, I went home that night with an even greater appreciation for each chapter’s intent in my own autobiography which I’d put aside due to lack of confidence. After all, why shouldn’t I translate years of memories into a form that preserves my own existence? This endeavor, I was determining, didn’t have to be merely a record of my life with Holmes and Ginny and my family members. That would be boring.

Ginny was right and Marya Brooks, in essence. I needed more images to enliven the prose and my reflections about particular events. I never would have thought a poetry class could be so enjoyable although difficult!

After Holmes’ second and fatal heart attack a few months after Ginny married Dick, I thought about getting a dog like my neighbor Connie did. Her whole personality seemed to transform for the better after she adopted Nick, only a year ago. A mutt with some Lapsa in him, she said when I noticed her with the frisky pup while I was retrieving the mail one afternoon.

Nick’s changed my life. Connie smiled widely. He gives me a reason to get up every morning.

Instead of getting a dog, I opted to volunteer at Health Park last year. At Christmas I bought myself an oversized stuffed German Shepherd in the gift shop where I’m cashier. I’d almost forgotten about my 25% discount. I named him Major II since Holmes so loved Major I, the German Shepherd he trained in the Canine Corps.

Now I have to write a poem about a person, family, friend, relative or. Well, that will also be good for the autobiography!

As Dreams Are Always

Ana Angel, Silvia Bells-in-the-Feathers, Don George, Karen Harte, Theodora Roth. I’ve determined that these are the top five poets in the United States for the past several years. Their names appear everywhere: Poets & Writers; The New York Times; in PBS Infomercials; Booknotes on CSPN; The New Yorker; Atlantic Monthly.

Now, Teddy Roth, African American from Oxford, Mississippi, and only forty-five years old, has teamed with Hallmark for note cards, frames and gifts featuring her poetry. I saw them in Kay’s Cards last week. When H. A. Doyle (what a marvelous name) showed me last month’s issue of O, I was mortified. Granted, the asterisk noted ‘The Trapped Human’ as early-Roth, but I was dumbfounded, nonetheless. Am I the only one to detect the poem’s strong similarity to William Blake’s ‘The Tiger?’

Oh Deer & Owl in the forest can I be uninvited guest? As you fly over limb & tree, may I ride to be what you see?

I too have a dream to be free in bronze soul, a dark symphony. Could you teach me to hoot & leap instead of weeping in this sleep?

Where did you learn to run and why, to stare or wink with certain eye? Can I follow you as Shadow to feel what it means to flow?

I’m like old woman in tight shoe whose day and night routine is rue; is there a path to the saltlick or a way over clouds that’s quick? If I want to leave this sullen house where I still creep as quiet mouse, is there a sign I can receive to help me decide to live?

Oh Deer & Owl in the forest, can I be uninvited guest; as you fly over limb and tree, may I ride to be what you see?

Still, I decided to bring to class Roth’s Glazing a Muse, along with Silvia Bells-in-the-Feathers’ Uncle and a college poem by Don George, the L.A. won-derboy some critics compare, oddly enough, to Lord Byron. Give me a break!

I’ll save Karen Harte for next time and Ana Angel who’s often featured with her band in the latest TV commercial for Mazda’s one-seater Miata, I informed the class.

I’ve seen it, June’s guest blurted out which didn’t overly-thrill me. The young woman from Boston is contentious and rude. I wasn’t even asked or told about her until I approached the classroom.

After that session I asked Ms. Doyle if she cared to reveal what the H. A. stood for when I returned the hefty periodical she’d loaned me. Actually, I wanted to avoid the uninvited motor-mouth who was fast-approaching at the same time.

Only if you keep it to yourself, she whispered, although the rest of the students already had left. Hilda Aline. She put her hand over her mouth.

There was an imagist known as Hilda Doolittle, I offered. "You might want to look her up.

I used to enjoy H.D.’s work even though she wasn’t considered a major poet by most critics. ‘Cut the heat—/plough through it,/turning it on either side/of your path.’

I didn’t tell her that was precisely what I planned to do tonight on Freya’s day at eleven or so. Hilda’s soft black pants reminded me of Don George’s favorite color. He’s never been photographed in anything but, including the midnight cape as the lanky Italian refers to his velvet cloak, so derivative of the one Anais Nin always wore.

Now, there was a poet. Perhaps I’ll have time to share a page or two of House of Incest with the class. Would the students be put off by the title? Maybe not! In spite of the proliferation of loose morals in this country, many people are becoming downright conventional prudes. Nin’s long poem concerns the lonely abyss and consequences of being self-contained.

Granted, there are probably some who’d say I live a reclusive life myself. Very few of my readers (there can’t be too many) may be aware that I lived with a woman for thirty years. Of course, I never went around announcing same.

I met Carla when I was invited to read at various schools in south New Jersey. A small grant Jane secured for me after we became friends at a lecture Anais Nin gave in New York City. One of the schools was Point Pleasant High where Carla taught math and health, an intriguing double major. She’d heard about the reading and attended the assembly. Afterwards, she came backstage and introduced herself.

Now, I’m doing a very-different reading: burning a black candle I made myself with old wax. I’ll then prick stem and base with a sharp needle twenty-six times, the current age of Don George. The West Coast bard reminds me of a tall James Merrill, the wealthy poet Carla and I met at a pig-barbecue on Key West when I was a houseguest of a travel writer turned novelist. I wonder if he’s still alive.

Even though Don George is married to an older woman, probably his patron (matron?), he looks and acts like a drag queen in the videos I’ve seen. Nothing wrong with that either since all my life I’ve been open to what was heretofore considered the minorities in America. Now that I’m in the minority, I’m not totally bitter.

Well, perhaps a tiny bit since I’m a senior Russian/Polish/Celtic poet with few opportunities for grants, publishers, residencies.

But, I’m not really practicing this obeah with malice. I only want to bruise certain prominent egos so that a path might be open for moi.

As Dreams Are Always who postpones them for the bones of reality will not ever caress ghosts; half to be awake when Winter is everywhere my soul disallows since desire candles cloak not bigotry— guy, I promise by my mind. Keep smiling—the slightest effort of my will is more than egged boot-steps which kick me and present romantics out of way; boast, pushing us under worn heel for equality’s not the question

As colors far outweigh paint-by-number scenes.

This pubescent poem, written when George was a sophomore at Claremont, an expensive college in southern California, won him $l,000. and a guest lecture-residency at Bread Loaf in Vermont. We’ll see how many future prizes the prince wins after my black candle is done burning. After the fire flickers down to ash!

Uncle

I don’t know where the term uncle originated as in I’ve had enough, but sometimes I feel I won’t be able to finish the rest of these poetry classes. Marya’s assignments seem to be getting harder, or maybe I’m fighting a tendency towards laziness now that hot and humid days are becoming increasingly tedious.

At the last session, we read Silvia Bells-in-the-Feathers’ Uncle as an example of a narrative poem. But, not exactly a portrait as I hope to receive from you next week, Marya said. I feel intimidated in and outside class, wondering if our teacher ever gets writer’s block after reading the fine work of her peers.

Uncle

Whose blood isn’t mine, whose blood is mine without reservation,

I’m gambling with nickels and dimes suffering your conservation while drinking beer and wine.

Although we’re still mostly confined—

Winnebago, Sioux and Cree, you now blame Indians for ravaged river, stream, mountains topped with pine as you dredge the Hudson.

Blinking through acid rain you drive by tomato pickers bent like shadows in a broken line as you close windows and clutch small purse, whispering an evil curse.

Would that you endure the heat from waves of summer sun scorch wide fields then shack on stilt like tepee unshaded by corn, wheat, but you’re already bruising fruit.

First lottery then school sign draws luck though you still complain that Seminoles should be undone because of loud tom tom and moonshine slant eyes shiny beads.

With smallpox blanketing weeds trail pure deception, no act of contrition atones for such pain buried under tears wounded knee.

Fatal indignity returns buffalo deer assigned like ghosts to dance above white pony out of swamp beyond quarantine past Smokies edging columbine.

Councils of tribes pass pipe smoking foul deed chanting Great Spirit’s divine justice to herald new intervention displace bones for retribution reawakens storm sleeps in wind.

I’ve not believed in what you define as heavenly