Jan 09, 2024
Poet’s Corner: Getting Religion, Sitka Sound, Buckle My Shoe, Ojo Caliente, Curtains of Night
Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group. Getting Religion This child of frog and deer and stone can only trust that she is safe; this landed
Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds-based EPIC Poetry Group.
Getting Religion
This child of frog and deer and stone
can only trust that she is safe;
this landed mermaid will not yet know
whose finger strokes her face.
And I, her newborn mother,
must capitulate to time and wait —
how long — to hear her unknown voice
say, “wasn’t that a ride?”
Tonight, in clean hospital linens,
we lock dark eyes in dim light,
strangers bound forever,
sucking hard on faith.
Susan Pittman
~ ~ ~ ~
Sitka Sound
Great Uncle Peter pulled so many salmon
from these waters, they named the town for him.
Now my stringy girl digs a rod into her hip
and reels up another fat-jawed ling cod.
Her pole arches the same fertile sound
my grandmothers crossed on proper steamers,
swapping their emancipated educations
for moonlit canoes and hikes with chums.
My brother braces her back as she hauls
steady against the entire Inside Passage.
He nets the thing, her fifth, and clubs
its bulging head. She does not look away.
Across that inlet, my mother was born.
Over that mountain, Dad perfected his shot.
And so far back the memories could be dreams,
I ate dinners with Granddad’s cannery men.
Her sixth. A little Alaskan in her after all,
no one says out loud, considering the purple shoes,
the headphones, the frequent flier miles.
We rumble into town to the FedEx place.
She wants a feast under New England maples,
with a hometown blueberry pie.
Her best friend in audience; her sister
for corroboration. Her history ahead of her.
Susan Pittman
~ ~ ~ ~
Buckle My Shoe
One used sofa, black as the cat that naps,
and a piano solo in the long stretch of night.
Two open kisses, two mugs of peppermint tea,
bedside lists that number the dreams.
Three, four baby in the crib, giggles on the floor
and a warm dryer full of fluff and cozy.
Four, three, too many bottles of shampoo,
who took my mascara and where are the keys?
Three, two on the sofa watching movies
with Ben & Jerry. She beats her wings and flies.
One o’clock in the morning back again,
The piano drums loud, without objection.
Susan Pittman
~ ~ ~ ~
Ojo Caliente
For two hundred a day, plus meals,
I can ease my responsible back into the same lithium silk
of steaming mountain water where the Tewa once paid
with only their birthright, to make peace and give thanks.
Dim clouds of vapor hang on the surface,
reluctant to rise in what has laced ochre cliffs with icy drifts
that prism the morning light. I inhale and dissolve
in a tentative peace that leans on inadequate apologies.
A Tewa woman, her step also cautious with age,
and her daughter, strong like mine, perhaps bathed together
after a day of travel or worship, and their descendants live on
in the pueblo over the ridge, and clean our rooms,
perhaps, as we soak.
Susan Pittman
~ ~ ~ ~
Curtains Of Night
“It’s no secret that bluegrass music is all about lonesome.”
Wayne Erbsen, Hudson Valley Bluegrass Association
“I Remember You Love in My Prayers”William S. Hayes
When the curtains of night are pulled back by the stars,
and the beautiful moon leaps the sky,
my mother sang to me before bed.
A pretty picture, but I heard the sad
underneath my flat pillow, before drifting off.
It was the same song her father sang to her in the 30s
when she was growing up with a depression view
of loss around every corner, but nothing a pot of oatmeal
couldn’t hold off, as long as you didn’t complain.
My grandfather played banjo and piano in those days
And crooned her off to sleep with a hillbilly tune
by William Shakespeare Hays, who wrote hundreds of songs
about railroads, rivers, and log cabins. He was also,
like my grandfather, a reporter and newspaper editor
and, unlike him, like a steamboat captain.
And the dewdrops from heaven are kissing the earth,
my mother conjured in her sweet, trembling alto,
it is then that my memory flies, She closed her eyes
and I felt a longing that would be my heirloom,
a vivid love that lives only on the other side.
As if on the wings of some silvery dove,
the words went on, preparing me even then
for a sentence that meanders around a lingering curve,
perfect weights and stresses on each word,
in haste with the message it bears
The lost love passed down from the Civil War to me
entered my dreams each night, made sweet
with the correctness of melody and meter,
to tell you I love you wherever you are
and remember your love in my prayers.
Susan Pittman
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Susan Pittman is a proud member of EPIC and the Poetry Group led by Gerald Bigelow. Her poetry has been published in Stone Canoe, 3 Elements, Ocotillo Review, and other print and online publications. She has studied with Sharon Olds, Carl Philips, Gail Mazur, and Tom Lux at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Omega Institute, and Emerson College. She teaches at Skagit Valley College. She invites you to visit her website atwww.susanpittmanwriter.com
Getting ReligionSitka SoundBuckle My ShoeOjo CalienteCurtains Of Night