Featured Poet: April 1999
In her previous life as a concert singer she was soprano soloist with Noah
Greenberg's New York Pro Musica, sang at Dylan Thomas's funeral and collaborated with W.H.
Auden on a recording of Elizabethan Verse and Music for Columbia Records. In her present
life Ruth Daigon edited Poets On: for 20 ears.
Her poems have been widely published: Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, Negative Capability, Poet & Critic, Kansas Quarterly, Alaska Quarterly, Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, Tikkun....Internet "E" zines include Ariga, Crania, Cross Connect, Zuzu's Petals, Switched-On-Gutenberg, Recursive Angel, Mudlark, PoetryMagazine.com.... she also appeared as Poet-Of-The-Month on The University of Chile's Pares Cum Paribus (an "E" chapbook in English and Spanish) in 1998, and Web Del Sol published her latest chapbook on the WEB 1998-9. Her poetry collection "Between One Future And The Next" (Papier-Mache Press) appeared in 1995. Gale Research published her autobiography in their Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, 1997.
AWARDS
1976 Poet in residence at Ossabaw Arts Colony, Georgia
1980 Fellow at the Wavertree Arts Colony, Virginia
1986 Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Arts
1988 Honored by the Connecticut Commission On The Arts, Trinity College (Hartford) and the
Hartford Courant for her contribution to poetry.
1991 One of ten poets whose work was broadcast on the BBC, Radio Europe and in the US in
an international poetry festival sponsored by the BBC.
1993 Winner of the Eve of St. Agnes Poetry Award (Negative Capability
Magazine) and runner up in 1994
1997 Ann Stanford Poetry Award University of Southern California
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/lyric
A FUTURE THAT RESEMBLES NOW
In a continuum of clean sheets
and white nights
I sleep with my watch
secure on my wrist
and balance on
the year's narrow edge.
I know some small things:
the first frost sweetens,
the second kills.
In my secret world, light
shines like dandelions
gone to seed in a moonscape
and a single tree
draws me to the ferny
underbelly of woods.
As birds wing
in old departures,
I'm ambushed by petals,
leaf mold, earth crust
and a shock of sky.
In a future that resembles now
I learn to pat death
like a dog, it's growing
so familiar. When I pick flowers,
they root in my palm, tendrils
lace through fingers.
Long after they fade
I'm wrapped in their silk
as I rest in the tall grass
absolutely still
like a stone warmed by the sun
denting the earth.
OF SPRUCE AND SILENCE
light blooms in every window
a smudge of streets
no names no addresses
wrapped in twilight
we walk the narrow path
on stones worn thin
our bodies offer no surprises
in that sober space between us
when daylight dies along our fingers
we listen to a quiet spinning
the air smooth
a night of spruce and silence
that almost lasts forever
i hum life into you
when you're asleep
and dream a word or two
but for the moment we'll
rest
quiet as linen
holding each other
against the steady drift of days
OLD PEOPLE AT THE FILM SERIES AT THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Every Monday, the city herds
feeds, protects old people
like an endangered species.
The rest of the week it's open season.
When the bus unloads
some move toward the entrances
sniffing to see which way the wind blows.
Others inch along full of
leanings and complainings.
All week they've been detaching days
wrapped around each other
like cabbages, measuring time
by the coffee rings staining the table top.
Now each of them holds
in a marinated hand a ticket
to an afternoon of shadows.
All through the movie
they croon to themselves.
And when it ends, they climb
back on the bus and settle into place
folding moments like clean wash.
Then they lick their lips, tasting
the sweet connection of the first years
with the bitter flavor of the last.
STRAWBERRY PRESERVES
In the dim noon of the cellar
I locate the cupboard
where preserves are stored,
carry her last jar
up into sunlight,
brush away dust,
pry open the lid and
breath the succulent air,
then thrust my tongue
through jar's mouth and
taste the sweetness glazed
with August she preserved
all those wintry years.
CHECKS AND BALANCES
Your little black book
recording all our debts
credits
never showed up
We looked through
pockets of old sweaters
reached inside your gloves
inspected sweat bands in your hats
but found nothing
You spent all your evenings
sorting out the days
the years
and in your private code listed
your gifts against ours
a phone call
a letter
a look of love
Our shadows are still crowded
with your outlines-
you nodding to us
in your special chair
in its special place
and we
nodding back
Mother with her passion for small gestures
smiled and signalled love
but you
busy with mathematics
in your universe of closed brackets
never looked up.
Evenings, we'd warm our hands
on hot cups of cocoa
watching for rumors
in the fixed shadow of your face
Now ambushed by time, we're
deep in our brown days
listening for truant voices
busy with our own reckonings at last
POPPY SEED COOKIES
you come in from the cold
warm your hands the air
glows golden with the smell
of sweet dough browning
a glass of cool milk
on the clean table
cookies fresh from the pan
poppy seeds spattering
each perfect circle
you take one in each hand
crunch them slowly
wet your fingers
mopping up crumbs
once her words tasted
bitter as yeast
now the distance
between you is gone
she's close by
the sun in her apron pocket
you are partners again
like a batch of dough
and the rolling pin
this is the dream you have been
dreaming all your life
AND WHEN GRANDFATHER DIED
she watched her mother
wet her fingertips
brushing powder
from her brows and lashes
and followed her downstairs
every man wore
matching pants and jacket
every woman
a plain black shawl
before the funeral they
gathered in the dining room
not the kitchen
and drank tea
from the willow pattern
cups and saucers
table cleared
they kissed her on the forehead
and left in a trail
of long black cars
she finished the poppy seed cookies
hidden in the pantry
put her patent leather tap shoes on
and splashed through the yard
came back in
marched upstairs and stood
on the white chenille bedspread
making perfect foot prints that said
I'm here.
THE LIQUID LIFE
Early mornings when light
butters the city, we're at the kitchen
table, detaching sentences
wrapped around each other
like cabbage leaves.
In this liquid life, we're
frying onions, garlic and tomatoes,
throwing spaghetti on the ceiling.
If it sticks, we stir the sauce
until it's thick enough to serve.
Another morning, another evening,
a piece of sky between our fingers,
bodies arched, arms elbowing the night,
we're poised, expectant,
and almost ready to learn.
Moonstruck and medieval
like naked lovers in distant windows,
we listen to winds humming
and stars in their contrapuntal stutter
as night breathes us in.
A FRESH CADENCE
awake i run my hands
along the flesh I know
better than my own
your body turns toward me
curves against my back
matching perfectly
our mouths shape words
into a new language
stored in linen
for the slow years ahead
shadows stitch the night
we are in a different country
i let my fingernails grow
paint my eyelids blue and invent
hot nights in our fifth floor
village walk-up above italian
shouts and smells where a thin
thread of sun hovers in a life
of cool vegetable mornings
scorched afternoons and naked
nights dreaming of feathers
when our familiar bodies drift
toward each other we are back
in our private room with windows
where silence gathers
in a grain of soundx