USA

pwj@tco.net

HEARTSTONE

I went with writer-women
to a meadow sky-high in mountains, to a labyrinth
laid out in courses of rock.
In the spirit of the day
I did the correct things:
heard a talk on labyrinth history, looked at books
spread like a picnic lunch, wafted rabbitbrush
and prayer against cobalt air.
I even tucked mugwort in my left nostril.
As prepared as I could make myself, I set foot
on the sacred path.

My feet wanted to march in a hike.
I slowed them.
My brain buzzed with chatter louder than jays.
I turned it off.
I followed the ancient pattern, focused old pain
in the acorn I rolled in my palm.
Waited politely while the woman ahead
went through gyrations known only to Buddha
at the 400, it seemed, stations of her new belief.
Women patted rocks, sat cross-legged
in the center, flung arms around bodies
passing, shared a caress.
I kept stepping across rocks for oncoming traffic.
The occasional smile twitched
the corner of my mouth. I confess
I bent over buttercups, noticed purple vetch,
fingered pink foxtail stars, watched salal bells
chime their silent song. But illumination?
Enlightenment? Deep release? No.

My heart jolted.
At the end of one lane
in the matrix of white of a granite boulder,
a granite heart marked the turn in the path.
My feet refused to carry me around.
My fingers, as if drawn by a cord,
pressed their soft flesh against the stone heart
while my knees folded me to the ground.
Head bowed, I felt you, long dead,
fill my body with tears long-shed.
As I rose, your hand led me
to the labyrinth's center.
There, in a rock hollow, I dropped
the acorn dull with old pain
to the lichen and cedar tips,
faded flowers, one silver bead.

Calm, I started the outward trek.
Found myself halted again
at the heartstone. Something
seemed to be bothering my eyes.
Despite a sense of sacrilege
I fished a tissue from my jeans.
Nose buried, blew away tears -
and sticky mugwort.
My hair lifted in the freshening breeze,
I felt you flow away from me.
Able now to take that turn in the road
I rejoined the writer-women, my lips sealed,
eyes glowing like opals, matching the looks
on their faces, their stilled hands.

Published in Manzanita Quarterly, Autumn 2001

POWER WOMAN

Recycle is the name of her game.
She turns everything she sees
into something new. Decorates
her garden - and mine - with willow
rods she cuts by the creek. Ties them
with tough cord, carries bundles back
up the hill over her shoulder
like a peasant woman in medieval pictures.
She turns the flimsy wands into works
of rough art, trimmed with cast-offs
from garage, yard sale and workshop.
For my garden we laugh over her Power Woman:
arms flexing biceps of church key
and small machine connecting rods,
short red body balanced on long bolts,
neck and halo of black hair from a bull's
nose ring and a green doorknob face
with pouty lips, flirty eyes. Baling wire
crinkles her curls, gives her ruffles.
She stands against her willow frame
puffing energy, life and steam.
Beside her a cat doorstop in worn
red paint, at the top a hand-printed sign:
Beware of cat and wild woman.

Published in Manzanita Quarterly Summer 2001

WOLF WOMAN

Under flesh seared in sudden flame
they howled. Enraged
voices bubbled in blisters
from scorched, peeling skin.
Through long months
of drugs, knives, bandages,
the subterranean creatures
growled when she wept,
snarled with short-fused temper,
shrieked through gritted teeth
at treatments promised
to make her whole.
She kept them secret,
the wolves that prowled her body.
One unendurable day
they leaped through her lips,
raged in pain.
Doctors did not understand.
Thought her mad, doubled the dose.
Months passed. She healed.
Kept the source
of her strength buried.
On the day of her discharge
they clawed free of deep tissue,
howled in unwindowed light.
She claimed them -
Eva of the Wolves.

Published in Poetry Depth Quarterly January 2002

THE GENES OF GUILT

The only wrinkled forehead in the whole
first grade picture, my father looks
off to the side with a responsible frown,
the gathering glance of
trouble on the way
he wore for his long helping life.
I wonder
caught in the blood
bond of caring
how many generations have transmitted
that particular gene
to the eldest child afflicted
with the admonition
take care of your sister
and
at what point in two aging
lives one can simply let go
to let the other
live without rescue
from the almost empty
pantry of plenty
or
do they go to their separate graves
fingers outstretched
reluctant drops doled
and
if the sequence breaks
can the one stumble
without the other shattering in guilt?
I wonder
how many generations
passed on that frown
to the little face in the faded photo.

Published in Room of One's Own, June 2001

APRICOT JAM

Giddy with spring, gulping fresh soft air,
she pushed her healed body
up a rickety ladder
into the green crown of the tree.
Across her plaid-shirted back
the sun played a pattern of leaf and branch.
Hands plunged among the fruit,
she cupped small globes of pink-gold velvet
in tender fingers. Coaxed apricots
from their twigs, layered them
in a basket woven of reeds.
She laughed as perfumed juices
dripped from her greedy mouth.
Small leaves brushed her shoulders,
a delta breeze cooled flushed cheeks.
In the kitchen, scrubbing,
she noticed with dread the tiny scratches,
remembered the rustling
around bare arms, the eager thrusts.
She watched from another planet
her arm fill and swell, throb to her heart's
hastened rhythm, glow with fire*
and never hungered for apricots again.

*Lymphedema - scourge of the breast cancer patient

Published in Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer
by Patricia Wellingham-Jones, 2000

© All Copyright, Patricia Wellingham-Jones.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.