it was so bitterly cold that winter of 1943
the snow fell heavy and icicles reached so near the
ground that father rose earlier than usual each morning
just to knock them free so we would be safe as we
left for school while the sky was still dark and
you could see your breath in the air that hovered
over the frozen days of waiting for word from the front
brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins were not coming in
from the cold each night with empty lunch pails after
a long day at the factory and a short stop by the pub
they were not stomping snow off of work boots and placing
icy fingers and chafed hands on mother's hot cheeks as
she stood over a steaming pot of something warm and savory
we tried to imagine the nights they faced, the color of
darkness over paris, berlin, places with names we couldn't
even find on maps in the encyclopedia or on globes
that once delighted and now only spin as children search
for clues about a brother's whereabouts, a father's postmark
they do not know that I too wait for word from a boy i met
on the train that day not long ago when the world felt mine
and lilacs bloomed and the air was sweet with promise of
letters from the front and a soldier's smile over coffee
i check the floor beneath the mail slot and wonder each night
if a letter came but slipped beneath the edge of mother's
chair or worked its way into the cracks between floorboards
I rise from bed and tiptoe down the stairs to where
the cold breathes through window casements and under doorjambs,
but there is no envelope, no return address that I cannot find
on map or globe no postmark from a place where I can dream of going to care for him in a field hospital or red cross
tent beneath a cold starless winter sky
and so i weep and my tears pool in the folds of my bed jacket
until I fall asleep bathed in hope that a boy named billy
is dreaming I am curled beneath the mail slot
waiting for a love letter filled with tomorrow's promises --
a letter from far away for a girl
back home
the forest is silent today under the hush of
last night's storm, trees sleep long beneath heavy
quilts of pillowed white stillness and the sigh of
winter breathing through the somber steel of mid-December
i tiptoe softly not to wake the slumbering, weary from
a night of arched branches straining against the
buffeting threat of wind and sleet and what could
not be seen between the silence just before another gust
beneath my feet are the footprints of other visitors
snowshoe hare and something smaller than a bear but
larger than a door mouse leaving nothing but the brush
of tail against an untouched drift of white along
a fallen log
and then i see it in the distance a glimmer of blue
woven through the shades of gray and white like ribbon
on a virgin's sleeping gown floating softly as she
breathes a sigh of wonder just above her hope-filled dreams
it is the remnants of a sparrow's nest lingering high above
the forest floor where leaves have fallen and the sounds
of summer sleep a cradle for nestlings now wintering far
from the silence of this place where their mother's
gathered treasures catch my eye and call me deep with
the stillness of the hundred acre woods
She gathered modest gifts to lay
beside his cradled head
a sparrow for a friend
to sing a song of sweetness
and hold gently in his hand
Along the path she rested
when weariness engulfed
and there she lay within
the arms of moss
soft as her mother's breast
a branch of willow
smooth as silk like
fingers cool and sweet
would someday
weave a thornless crown
for boyhood games
of kings
she brought her gifts
when morning mist
still blanketed the moor
and thought of
yet another lad
born in winter's cold
his bird, a dove,
his moss was hay
his branch of thorns
to come
but still a babe
and still a mum
and still a winter's morn
It was dusk by the time we loaded
everyone into the old Jeep
the sleeve of dad's red and black check
lumberman's shirt draped across the
back of the seat as he eased us out of
the long driveway in the gathering twilight
The boys were sugared up on candy canes
and the little ones were sleepy
in the failing light of early December
just after dinner, but before the winter solstice
We older girls sat in the cold waiting for
the magic of the season to reach our
teenage hearts and melt the cold indolence
of being beyond what we'd always loved
and secretly never forgotten
Sitting in the middle I could see the
reflection of my sister's face in the glass
of her coveted window, steamed over with
our hushed sighs of wonder as lights
sparkled from front yards and houses
along the way
old man Johnson's farm was half way between
town and nowhere, acres of trees waiting
to be chosen, branches still peppered with
the forgotten nests of a thousand hatchlings
now grown and making their first pilgrimage
towards the warmth of places they've never been
my sister and I would carry the saw between us
as we tromped through the ice-crusted remnants
of a late november storm that left us blanketed in
the promise of sledding and snow angels,
frozen fingers and crackling fires scented with pine
cones we'd collected in the mountains that fall
i saw her first and knew
I wondered if I could quickly suggest
we look away from where she stood -- elegant and
full of something sad, ready for this last winter
under a sky full of stars and her toes in the
icy darkness of a field in the middle of nowhere --
leaving her to grow another year of nestlings in
her arms
I was twelve that Christmas
when all I needed
was the soft sable of brushes, the scent
of linseed oil, and the sound of a palette knife
slicing along rough canvas as it layered
colors -- warm and cool -- against one another
colors with names that danced across my tongue
lying heavy and comforting as grandfather's
quilt across my heart. i spoke them with
the reverence of a novitiate during vespers
These were my silent, willing companions
cerulean, ochre, burnt sienna, umber,
prussian blue, cadmium yellow, aquamarine --
I could bring them with me wherever I was taken
a different state, a different school,
with them I was no longer the stranger,
the new girl.
i tattooed myself with their essence, wore
them like badges against the emptiness of
not knowing who I was
in them, I knew, I was an artist, a painter an odd
and quiet girl with her head in the clouds and
smudges of cobalt along her cheek
I dreamed in an artist's smock and wore
eau de Cezanne in my hair -- words
became colors, shapes, shadows of what I
could not say, and colors lived in words...
my daddy went to sea today
i watched him from the sand and when I could
no longer see his face I closed my eyes and held
him where his smile never fades but
lives warm and kind beneath my heart.
i will stand here while the tide lifts and
falls waiting for the first sign of his sail
as it rises above the horizon from the east
his coming more wonderful than the dawn
he is the sun in my day, and in his eyes I am
skipper of the strong ship that will carry my dreams
a sound vessel, deep-keeled and open to the stars
I pilot his heart with all the mastery of a
captain's daughter
fair days, or slated skies with lowering winds
my father's arms will lift me high above
the shoals of time, and in the shelter of a place
that never changes i am safe from all that shifts
around me
I wait for him to join me on the sand where I
have built a castle for the king he is, to the princess
I will always be...in his eyes the color of the sea
it beckons me, "come look, and see...
what lives beyond the rock-ribbed safety
of your certainty."
what river swells its banks while children
splash and lovers sleep on quilts of
whimsy beneath a cloudless sky
come see what leaves are dancing in the breeze while
horse flick their tails and whinny in pastures
green with summer
is this a home or a sepulcher,
a cottage or a cage filled with beautiful
playthings and delicious treats
that keep canaries drunk and sated
but the light is calling
it calls us forth beyond the cool
cavern of self, beyond the soft echoing of
what we have always thought was enough
come out and dip your toes in muddy water,
let the ripple of a child's laughter
disturb your entombed biases get messy in
get messy in the swirl of uncertainty
let the hem of your skirt lift and dance
around your shoulders in the wind
feel the tall grass play a string of kisses
against backs of your bare knees
open the window and take your stillness into
the pasture where it can run wild with horses
and sing into the hills a song of praise
a prayer of joy...
[photo credit: Jordan Jenkins 2012]
she stands within the clearing
a silent spectre of innocent peace
listening for the rustle of dry leaves
the brittle snap of winter's breath
her flesh quivers with a question
"who goes there,"
she asks, wide-eyed and on her mark
each frosted breath that sighs from
sleeping fox or quiet dove
stirs the air with uncertainty
the forest lies quiet beneath december
a convent for the weary seeking rest
curled ferns and snowshoe hares kneel
speechless in the snowy knave of
a loamy sanctuary where birch trees
bow before the stillness of the season
i waited there
beneath the tree,
a child and a tender plea.
my simple prayer
"please send to me
a sign that someday I'll be free..."
and there I waited all day through
the air was still
the sky was blue
i thought a cloud might give a sign
a shifting shape
to stir my mind
but clearer skies have never been
and ne'er a message sent from there
the grass beneath my fingers then
a ladybug, a singing wind
but nothing
not a single word
fell from the sky, or rose from earth
and then I felt her
soft as grace
cooing from her hidden place
a song of love profound, sublime
her downy prayer
devotion's sign
