Poems For Maria Ellen Rice

These are a set of poems in memory of my cousin Maria Ellen Rice who died in January 2011 before the spring.

I know that she held a deep love of flowers, and these were ones we talked about in a long call I am thankful we had. I cannot think what else to say or do, but I do know that my skills are not up to what she deserves. I'll add as I can.



Violets

Stems snap at root
Beneath heart shaped leaves
Mountain floor jewels.



Azaleas


Mine were folded tissue presents
Unwrapped in springs long past
Gifted by a father and a queenly being
Origami folds
As simple as what
Sprang on a cold morning
Carmen, tangerine, magenta
Onto snowy branches
Opening a promise in spring fecundity


I teach an Azalea now
Not to dance and flower
Or to wave on the breezes
Removed from mountain and frosts
She is a blossom of possibility unfolding
I tell you this
As you lie wounded
Spilling your crimson heart
How can it be that
Our flowers could not just continue to
Sustain you?





Begonias


On grandma's porch in tiny plastic pots
There was always an overture of welcome
On heavy laden stems
(that I always thought would snap, did snap)
Begonias just dragged the edges
Enormous, folded, dancing mirandas
Set against log cabin up to the sky
Peering in to witness us
As grandma was watering and tending





Maria


I know your mother kept day lilies
for you. She told me so
Planted bulbs around your home
for you. She told me so
Sent me photographs once of them
all for you. She told me so


The lilies that I drew came from down our road
Growing wild in welcoming summer heat rushes
In the hills I knew as my mountains.
My mother scorned lilies
too rough, wild, too freely given.
To her a marigold, zinnia, the lily
Were "common."
So when I drew them she
Never failed to tell me that
Along with a secondary compliment
On the technical craft.


I think in some way you are aware of that,
Maria, in some way
You took in the lily
The wild look of wind
And reed, raw perfume spread
Into a fiery July night
Her tattered spent blooms
Set on these wandering stems welcoming
Another to try again.

I think you took in
Rock and stone, on sandy soil
That she could navigate. Her weedy
Humble attempt to beautify
The vacant lot.
You saw beauty there
Your momma told me so.




Wild Roses


We talked of them, do you remember?
Those you stretch a hand out
Only to have a finger full of her thorns
A splash of petals, a fence in
A pasture calling out Wild Rose.
While a gray horse stands
Watching our childish actions
We climb and grasp a handful of
Blossoms upsetting a bumbly bee
In the sticky, fetid, wet morning
Down by the creek bed still
Sticky with juice from a volunteer
Strawberry.

She's wild, this rose you say
Through the walk we took
In time and space there on the phone
But these are the ones worth knowing.
The wild roses in our hearts
That once grew around the fence
Posts in a pasture
Overgrown with thorny vines.



Lilacs


Avon made soaps
That also held the scent
We'd get them
From a neighbor
For our order.

Lilacs fell from
An old bush
In our yard
Planted years before
My house was parted off
And built.


Spring meant
Many things arrived
Congratulations on
Surviving the winter
Sorry for our losses
None more pleasant
Than pushing a
Nose into the lilacs.








Lily of The Valley

In the moss
Under the plum
Past the apple
By the black raspberry stand
Before the dahlias
Came the
Lily of the Valley.


Pretty girls,
Bell-headed
Strung on their stems
Ringing away in the breezes
Calling me to
Morning
Vespers.


Sweet little lilies
I might crouch
To say
Tell me of your
Days and they
Reply with nods,
"It's Spring."





Apple Blossoms


Once the breezes blew
All at once
Petals left their tiny fruit
Falling gracefully onto the
Greenest grass
A shower of pink and white.

That's how I think of
You now.

A moment in time,
Stage in life
Of the fruit of knowledge,
Delicate, ethereal,
Tissue, falling
Gently to the good earth,
In quiet repose.







Daffodils


when my parents divorced
My father wanted to take away
The daffodil bulbs he brought
From his mother's, that had
Belonged to her mother
Because he did not remember
That I was also connected
To them, but he waited
Until he had the victory of mom
Losing our home
And then dug them to place
At his new home
With another, then another.

They weren't yellow
They weren't single
They weren't even my favorite
Daffodils. What they were
Was my history.






Larkspur

A tender star
Held on a stem
Tiny estrella
Milky way zen.




Columbine


In the mountain
Pastures among
The burr and sticky
Sap that chaffs
My leg
Is a Columbine
Searching out
her spaces
Shedding as she can
Her tiny seed
Alive for a moment
In golden, with a reddish
Interior,
She resists
Transplanting
To the side
Of a wall
In a suburban split level
Ever after choking
Hers is the life
Of a mountain survivor now
Always free.






Dogwood

Let me crawl up my cross
swallow whole the news
The passing of your soul.

She is a stained cross
This bloom the reverend
Is preaching

Symbol of eternal life
Strong in spring snows
Her horseshoe petals splayed

In a crowded center
In four part harmony
She sits on her branches

This tree of life
Natural bonsai
The dogwood of the mountain

Conferring spring upon our
Cruel, claiming winter
An etude against our darkness.






Peonies


If a writer could be a flower
Then I think Eudora would be
A peony.

Hung heavy on the morning
Still, thickly perfumed
Made from layer upon layer
Of petals folded
Like an elaborate cuff
On an ancient grandmother's portrait
Or a ruffle on my hat
Silken taffeta in a
Room frozen by time.
The peony.





Queen Anne's Lace

As doilies go, this floral one
Reigns above the rest
We bow to her
Her intricately woven face
Held to mid-day heat
Sweltering with grace
The curtsy we offer
Of buttercup and court
In deference.
She's often entertaining
Lady bug or sparrow,
Duke of this or that
A cup of dandelion tea perhaps,
Some shortbread or sweet anise,
Upon a mustard leaf?






A Bouquet Too Lovely For This World


One day I looked up and in the field
Where my own violets grew anonymously, where lilies roamed
and I rumored snakes to keep things for myself
The neighbor stood with tractors
And a huge violently churning truck filled with cement
My father came to talk to me, through my pleading
He said, "Nedrow hasn't got the aesthetic
Of understanding what he does today, why your field
Matters dear heart."
Dad knew though, he had planted that in me, seeds I've watered
All my life.
Just as within you our family placed something to delicate to explain to a harsh
Industry.
Leaving a field wild matters, I said defiantly.
Dad told me then that it would be like talking to a rock
But he dutifully went out and failed
To make the blind see.

Somehow Maria you must be that field.
Oh cousin of mine
Home to these hidden flowers, insights, things to precious to save now
Lost to those of us casting a gaze
Out our life windows these mornings after
As the ground is torn apart, the cement cast churning
The beauty of the gentle flower
Plowed away.

Here in my heart, Maria, I carry you in a bouquet
One too beautiful to last
That I'm holding in my inadequate hands
With my poetic craft a miserable
Vessel to contain the sweetness of your good life.
I could not stand against that tractor
And failed to hold this back as well,
But your life was of greatest meaning to me.






The Trillium


When we talked
I asked you
If you saw trillium and may apples

You said
That you
Loved them and we rapidly spoke

Of this
And that
The rich deep reds the ones for me

You stopped
I listened
And in that silence stood all we couldn't say.






Spring


It must be true that
Spring's greatest gift
Is her floral
Reminder of the eternal
Triumph of life
Over our death
Hope for tired hearts






If I were

If I were a flower
I might be a

Crocus popping
Through the frozen ground
Unfolding my head
To caress the warmth.

Or , perhaps, a tulip
Pushing through the snow pack
Showing a cup of red
Opening to the sun


Or perhaps I'd grace
The forsythia's stalk as a pageant
In golden yellow coming out
To dawn's early light


If I were a flower
dancing in the precarious arrival of spring
Wondrous at the day
Perhaps a brief moment I'd light your eyes.

Day's Thoughts

The golden light
Catches on the venetian blind
For just a second, in the harvest sunrise

I lift my head walking in
Through the bedroom doorway
To catch a glow of autumn

Folded Hands

My tired hands
Clasped one another
While I thought
Bent over this shaggy
Ruby mat
A bad moments buy from the Target

Staying bound together
Resolved to sad thoughts
My throat burned raw
I was immobile
Looking at my feelings, still laced

The hands glowered scarlet
Until I, lifting them
Upward with such effort, was surprised
Felt this carnal red rush
Blood beating through the fingers
Still interwoven
In crimson contemplation.

They had turned the color
Of this floor carpet
Completely transformed
As red as candy apple
I was so immobile
Looking at these fingers
That had florescence before my tired blinking eyes.

Child's Gift

She laced her fingers
Into mine at the pumpkin patch
Like the coolest compress
This action of a daughter
Calmed hours of fire and buried fury.
Easing something so unnoticed.
I realized it then,
"Will you be okay Mommy?"

Her fingers are so Long
I thought feeling them detached from the autumn
My children have this gift
Amazingly long thin digits, fingers,
She wrapped my wounds
As surely as I realized
This pain I'm carrying
"Will you be okay Mommy?"

The need for love, acceptance
The beauty of this child's simple action
We walked on the muddy straw
Corn mazes, pomegranates
Squash, breathed in
Turquoise bright, tangerines
Thinking lost to buzzing bees
"Will you be okay Mommy?"

Hands

The clock hands
Pass by
Circling
Marking the passage
Of what we know

My hands
Hold the pen
Scribbling
The passing
Of what was once felt.



I Walk Them Out

Everyday I walk my little class out
To a tree
Expectant faces looking for a parent
Or the babysitter
For some affirmation, a smile,
One by one they tell me
"He's here for me, teacher.

Or say, "My babysitter."

Sometimes no one smiles
Sometimes no one is there
So I say, "Stand over here by the wall.
I am waiting with you,
They are coming."
Children worry about it.
Scanning they do get filled with concern.
I do this everyday.
I used to allow children to play in the room
Be distracted by the piano, blocks, books.
But the "system" mandated
This higher level of concern
The release in this format.
Which is identified as
"Being on the same page."

I wish the parents
Understood the fleeting nature of these days
In the six year old lives
Grabbed them up with hugs
"How are you's?"
"I missed you sooo much."
As I walk out holding
Madeline's hand
She turns saying,
"They are here for me, teacher."

Día de los Muertos

It seemed macabre
Skulls, the dead
So for years
Las dios de la muertos
Was a day
In teaching that just passed

This year I saw a friend
Dressed for the Day of the Dead
With her daughter
So I went to read
About the origins of the day on Wiki
Rites, places and reasons for this
Remembering those passed on
The ephemeral nature
Sugar skulls
Every bit crafted
For a moment in time
The beauty of life.

How quickly time goes
Quick, sharp searing pain
We lose one another
One child said to me.
As we made our skulls,
"We all remember someone
It's so sad."
And so we celebrated that realization.

Wonder

What would we sing?
What would we do
If we lost all the past
And started now?

Beheld nothing
Through the lens
Of history or mistakes
Curse or cure
What would we do?



Skull's Eyes

Some filled the cavities with flowers
Others drew spirals
Fake eyes
Strange lakes of color
Floating in the skull
Looking out blankly
At time passing us by

Laughing at their work
They shifted back and forth
Showing ideas one to the other
Concentrating
Examining the work
Eyes taking in the designs.

The Week

The Meaning of Life

The Meaning of Life

There is no meaning, someone scrawled on a boulder
We used to pass by on our way out to a rock overhang
written boldly in spray paint
Next to god is dead,
Sometimes my mother felt compelled to answer
But what she said stays in the past,
I only brought the granite forward
I was just a child in a car moving forward in the sixties,
Slowly erosion, snows, crawling vines reclaimed
This billboard of the roadway.

It seems that I failed the one thing my father most wanted
Because I cannot seem to make money
Get a good job, save, earn
It was like water through a sieve
The greatest testament to happiness and living
Seemed to be defined by the accumulation of wealth
For him, and looking around now I know he meant well
It opens opportunity, doors, heavens
My age took a vow of prosperity.

I dreamed of someone
At a racetrack betting with a brother
Sitting in the stands describing to him
-while they joked, laughed, drank and partied-
This naive woman that gave them enough
Material to generate hilarity all day
Jokes, sex, two guys out playing the odds
Let the good times roll

A wise man tells me now to balance
Carefully over the carnival below me
Without looking down
Holding my breath as I step across the rope
Seeing the horses running, some coins on the street,
And that proclamation written for some reason here too
That we are balls in play juggling the emotions
While we walk the tightropes doing our own tricks
Choosing our steps with care.

Maybe I don't see so well in the dark
But ultimately life rushes around me provoking feelings,
Reactions, sinking and swimming
Currents and eddies in a chain of illusions
Of time and the river,
Small drop in an ocean of meanings
I can't see the whole
Though I am carried within it
Contained by the experience I am just the medium.