~*~
Wolf Rock School, October 2006
1
Between crop fields that rise golden and whisper
when dry and a husk is all that remains,
a white clapboard school sits with a few desks
and chairs for the local boys and girls.
They come most mornings by horse-drawn buggy
or on foot, the boys in dark, homespun britches
and straw hats, the girls in their white caps and frocks.
They clatter together, over wooden planks
with heavy heeled shoes, until the day’s lesson
begins. This is Paradise for any child,
when the class is small and the schoolhouse as serene
as the immense landscape that rises and falls
in green grass and autumn leaves
in their colorful, falling dance. The milk man
rides down the road once a week to collect
the milk from their parents, which is the only contact
most have, at this age, with the outside world
and its machines. Paradise in chalk,
Paradise in blackboard, Paradise in nature.
What a place to grow.
2
Shoot me first, said Marian to save the other girls.
He did.
Shoot me second, said her sister,
but she survived her courage. Thank God.
3.
A wolf howls from a lone rock that levitates
up into the clouds, a woeful sound that circles
around the shoulders of weeping mothers
like a thin shawl. Five little girls executed
in Paradise. The plank boards of the school
redden with blood and so, too, the earth below.
The milkman came to catch the bounty
of the Amish, again, this time in their children.
He must have confused the white-capped girls
with the rocking peaks of milk. He thought
to dip his finger in here and taste. He’d pounded
ten eyebolts into a wall spaced ten inches apart
to truss up the girls he kept when he sent
the rest away so that he could touch them in a line.
How efficient. A siren wail thwarted his saliva-drip
desire, so he shot the girls and himself, most execution style,
so their blood mixed with his amid crayons and lesson books.
4.
With the other women, she dresses the girls in white,
this children she turned with her own midwife fingers
and shepherded into the world.
5.
A nearby meeting house stretches its doors
for the mourning and the candles they bring.
Night lingers on, longer than usual, and the Amish
bow their heads, their whole bodies, into prayer.
Sam Stolzfus, a grandfather of one of the girls, speaks
to the boys who survive: Do not think this man evil.
Their hearts they must resign to God,
keep them smooth and untwisted by hate.
And to those around him, who listen to his husky,
woodcutter voice: A funeral to us is a much more
important thing that the day of birth
because we believe in the hereafter. The children
are better off than their survivors.
The congregation says Amen and moans in agreement.
This meeting place, too, is holy. Mothers look
to their sons, and fathers look to their daughters,
those who were not there or escaped, and hold
them dearer, wonder how this will change the future,
while they plan the funerals of Naomi Rose,
Anna Mae, Marian, Mary Liz and Lena,
determine which horses and which buggies
will bear them up to heaven.
6.
Simple pine boxes with no metal
pins in graves by hand.
All things return to dust.
~*~
Sisterly Advice
we cut
machete
switchblade
butterfly
sweet whine
snap fast
hold still
glint evil
don’t fuck
or else
i fuck you up
we cut
my brother
calls for
advice
you gotta
find the one
that clicks
before whistling
we cut
swivel stare
suspicious
at night
step light
sleep light
talk short
thumb the knife
the only friend
we trust
when we are sure
~*~
Paranoid, I live
I walk only well-lit streets at night
in neighborhoods I know.
If I must go to a new place, I explore
during the day and make friends
at the all-night places, like the Chinese
food store, the corner store, or the gas station.
I want to know where I can find shelter
if I have to run. When I go out, I learn
the name of every bartender, waitress
and bouncer. No man will spike my drink,
no spit will know my food, no one
will try to rape me on the dance floor
or in the parking lot. I leave before
the crowd, park close to the entrance,
walk in groups and with the police
on speed dial. They know my name, too.
At lunch, I will not sip from your cup,
unless we’ve played tongue tango
and there’s no point not to share
more germs. I will not go on a romantic hike
with you in the woods. I have been attacked
by dogs and do not need to see
bears close up and out of the zoo. I know
nature quite well living in the city:
a crack head stealing your purse
for his habit. That’s in crack-nature.
If a snake bites me on his turf,
that’s a snake’s nature. I prefer to drive
through the woods with my windows up
and door locked. On most days, I don’t
even wear red (Bloods) or blue (Crips)
or yellow (Latin Kings), which are all
some of my favorite colors. Instead,
I wear shades of brown. We all come
from that gang, and there’s no way
to get out of going back.
~*~
Horizon Beyond
He was a wanderer now wedded to a distant memory Laurie Anne Whitt
at birth, that’s what he became. One cannot move far in the womb’s confines,the place where elements combine in creation dances, for something without a name yet still alive, with palpitating heart and perhaps thoughts and a will. A mother births visions of a child’s life before he is born. In nightmares or sweet dreams, red encircles her burgeoning well, in which a child is trapped. Up this ladder of red, it climbs with the face of a dove, the face of a donkey, the face of an eagle, the face of a child wearing the face of a child while it transforms into a man’s face. A face like her father’s who beat her with his belt, yet was still adored. Will this child, too, punish in his delirium? He wanders from her in the break from nourishment. Sure, he is still bound to her breasts’ bounty, but each suck lends him strength to see the horizon, which before birth did not exist, and after, was just a blur of mother-scent and no more. Each suck is a reason not to suck, but gnaw and chew, draw succulence from earth, which becomes more mother to him than the one who gave him light. He grows like a tree, but faster, with sprinting legs and laughter. He shivers in the wind like pale green leaves. He takes on her father’s face and leaves the animals beneath his skin. And he learns a lover. He learns a lover and coos like that dove in her ear. He learns a lover and loves, walks the trails of it steady, like a donkey. Someday, he dies with his lover’s hand to his lips, with his mother’s rosary gripped until it slips lifeless like his hand, with final words whispered to no one’s listening, with dirt ready outside to greet him, with angels singing to him in a language he does not remember. He flies like the eagles he’s never seen out of a zoo. He flies for what horizons are beyond what can be seen. He was a wanderer now wedded to a distant memory. Amen.
~*~
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