ISRAEL

rochmass1@netscape.net

I thought a totem pole was God when I was young, I dared come closer
rarely touched, but when I did, I remember rough parts
and feeling scared. Size mattered then: faces towered over me
scowling, laddered one on the other, more at the top, then
the bottom. Wings in the center spread out farther
than I could reach. The colors weren’t from my childhood rainbow.

Reds were rusted and heavy, greens tough
as old grass, and blacks scratched blacker by weather.
I wanted to get to the message behind the eyes, release secrets.
My father once asked me: why do you nod at them?
He couldn’t understand, even though he could draw
the best hawk I’d ever seen, but he couldn’t see the moon

above the eyes, the canoe on the shoulder, the thunderbird beaks
in the middle. He’d tell me how they were carved, what tools used.
I wanted to know the chants the elders hummed
while they worked, watch the chief pull back the cedar bark
strip the trunks smooth. Wanted to see the rabbit’s fur on his jacket
for good luck and the abalone shells on his headband flash

back to the sun. My father told me how strong a carver had to be
and honor received for his work. But I heard vowel sounds of tribal dances
watched spinning capes. I raised my face to their God
as they tossed feathers of down on the earth to bless the place.
My father talked about craft, I wanted to spiral down
into the belly of the moon, settle into the bow of the canoe

hold tight to the thunderbird’s wing, soar with the abalone shells
to where the Gods really are. In winter my feet would stand in leaves.
The totemed faces stared back, mouths strained for spring and
I wore gloves. On spring days the sun opened what winter had split.
The last time I was there I didn’t take my father along, didn’t
want his analogies to the ancient rites of other peoples

his technical suggestions. Thunder clapped behind me
startled the pigeons and left me shaking.
My favorite totem at Kitsilano Beach, by the shore, stood firm
with peeled patches and splaying cracks.
No varnish smoothed the splinters.
The thunder rumbles down and I am moored again.

Winter where I was born made the earth a deeper place
filled it with loneliness as tough as the coal piled
in my father’s basement.
I believe the wind ruled -
not a careless power
rather the one constant
giving me no choice but to bend,
invent new posture.

The gap between night and day is frail, hardly there at all.
There are only a few clear moments when day
moves into night. Not really a matter of time -
the space is so transparent.
I read about a man who planned his death, then on a mountain road
where wild birds confirm space, he turned to living.

It’s been a long time since I had dark plans when spaces overlapped
didn’t leave me air nor light. I used to think I knew enough
but I’m shocked into knowing what I didn’t know
the way cold blasts when a door opens - like that man
on the steep road.

Today the day warms as it rounds to noon. At the turn of warming
I think of how another man’s hair rolled against his neck
began slowly like words leaving a pen. I felt pretty
wanted to stay.

There are mangoes now, avocados and pears. The rain
has started again, hits the top of the hedge, then slaps the window.
Smells of summer are cleared away
then night comes, scratching.

I think of radishes bulging red, know that bland men
do not brood nor baffle like the cold shuffling by my bed.
I measure myself,
match up pictures.

Want to save things, get lost in details. Stay away
from days that bring the same thing again
shake off memories
going the wrong way.

Night covers me with a tight lid. I fall between the shutter slats
plugged into a moving space where
everything is equal
but never the same.

© All Copyright, Rochelle Mass.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.