USA

Moonjan60@aol.com

No Word for Marigold

They didn't have marigolds in Poland
and besides my mama and papa emigrated
before they learned the names of flowers,
so many words buried and born under the foot of change,
the blue roofs of Poland gone.
On the boat, Mama's sister lost to fever,
Grandma's fingers sliding over rosary beads
as the boat crashed through the rocking waters
to New York, war bonds taped to their chests,
their name changed with the humid temperature.
On to the mines of Pennsylvania,
a steady paycheck, the toil of mules.
Grandma sewed labels in furs
for ladies in the cities, her small stitches hardly seen.
How would you write your life as story?
How would I? If you remember
the place that first held your cry,
would it shape your life?
My parents yearned to be close to the land
of their birth, had to decided between the smells
of history and carrots and meat.
I spent the first half of my life listening
to what they didn't know and what they had to do.
Mama showed me how to make kielbasa
as Papa studied for his citizen papers.
On hot nights, he'd read to us, no sleep
until the neighbors quieted
and the air cooled down. From the high shelf,
he'd get the family's treasured
story book, legends of children disappearing
in the sweeping snows of winter,
the woods behind the house, how they were lost then found.
We'd ask to hear again the part where the village
men struggled through any weather, any danger
to save children from wolves, from natures's hand,
plenty of mashed potato soup to nourish them
at the end of their scare. After we tried
his patience and knew we wouldn't get one more story,
one more reading, we could sometimes talk him into tracing
with his finger our picture book, our eager minds memorizing
lily, blue jay, eucalyptus.

The Mouth of Home, Arctos Press 1999

Hereafter

You could be swinging on a hammock
nippling a pear, your feet naked
to the balmy coast, aware that you were directed to this.
You could have nothing to fear. Your death

and its pain over. Worry ceased. Loved ones left
to care for each other. Look at what you're offered-
the ripe summer opening its nectar and its rose
to you, the valley winds

blowing its reminder of nesting, that expanse of white
things: birds, the bear, cousins of egrets.
Why shouldn't you be the breeze over Barcelona
enjoying the clay land and quiet

outskirts, the solitude you longed for without the loneliness.

The Comstock Review Awards 2000

American Bombing

Do you remember the day
planes filled the sky
carrying bombs to Japan?
How grateful the people
of Hiroshima were as the world
became quiet, almost gentle,
as the sky filled with what
they thought were
butterflies of peace,
floating down
unloading their burden.

Tonight we are in a pretty place,
the arch of the Zen guest house
divides the room with flowers and scrolls
painted in mauves and green, the candles
on the altars reflect the glow from the fireplace.
We are alive and warm;
upstairs, in the hospice
the dying are living
for each minute,
devouring life.

Into the Teeth of the Wind: UC Santa Barbara Review 2001

Contentment

It isn't always April,
those days when gold rings
the trees, wraps the night in silk.
How different from the dry days of August
when the grass mowed and watered, still yellows.
Hay covering meadows raked in rectangles
setting a geometry for horses soon needing
winter's rest.

In the dark moist days
after the animals are fed, I sleep too.
In my youth, I was seldom idle, now I welcome
my hands on my lap dreaming near you.
I remember nimble fingers, chords on your back,
tunes that live on in the eaves of our house.
The board on the floor cut in spring.

Red Rock River Award 2000.

Photophobic

Daylight hurts
my eyes, but through my dark glasses
I distinguish
open doorways and tiny rooms, some color,
more a sense of density
than pictures. I register people in different weights
depending on the nature
of their heart or level of their fear.
The murmur of voices helps. The splash
of water thinner than a mirror, glass less
than a tree, tree less than steel. I can see.
Vocabulary becomes a turnabout. A bridge,
not a road over water, but thick over thinness.
You ask me why I liked your grandmother-
because she was light like rain but
had tree not stone in her.

Calyx 2001

© All Copyright, Janell Moon.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.