Three Poems by Patricia Clark



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P. Clark.jpg (4520 bytes)

North of
Wondering

by
Patricia Clark

 

 

 


The Same Trees
    
    
The turf still shows the cut
of the gravedigger's spade,
and a few brown crumbs of dirt
sprinkle the blades of grass.
    
A wreath, a spray of blooms
still lie where we stood, heads down,
three days ago, under trees we knew
as children, the same trees.
    
We have hauled ourselves out
of the car, its exhaust puffing,
to stand in the drizzling rain
and then to kneel.  Mother says,
    
"He's really here after all.  It's not
a dream."  We say one prayer
together, the worn familiar words, bent
on the wet sod.  And I notice
    
how we each touch the ground,
that turf starting to root, before
leaving, as one pats a wailing
child
hand of comfort, of warmth.
    
    
    
Scotchbroom
    
    
Remember how golden
they blazed, growing wildly
on the hill near our house,
the hill between our house
and the freeway.  We pulled out
handfuls and carried them
home until Mother sneezed
and said to stop.  We'd climb up
to the swamp after a long week
under the eyes of the nuns,
learning the penmanship and
deportment of school, of life,
as the church bells tolled
through our childhood.  Frogs' eggs
floated in a mass, like periods
and commas in the muddy pages
of water.  Carried home in a jar,
they never hatched out.
    
Three years ago I drove back
to the spot where we picked
blackberries, where our dog
was struck by a car one year,
but not killed, where we passed
going home, carrying a chalice
of flowers or eggs, asking myself
how we all grew out of this.
And there were still golden petals
above a dusty green, bent as they
always were, from wind
and from rain.
    
    
    
La Chanson Du Rossignol
(after the painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau)
    
At first glance, a standard scene

a girl sitting on a stone block
near the woods while a nightingale sings.
But there's something heartbreaking
    
caught in her face, something that speaks
of the tragedies of class, of chores
repeated until the body becomes
as worn and beaten up as a shoe.
    
Her face, transfixed, shines
with a solemn attention that's also
weary.  What do the bird's sweet notes
have to do with her?  Yes,
    
she'll link arms with her love
at dusk and stroll here listening
to the trilling bird, but there's no denying
economics.  Her interlaced hands
    
are red from work and her feet,
though neatly crossed, are bare,
calloused on the soles, no doubt,
and cracked.  The whiteness of her arms,
    
the intelligent, thoughtful face
will have to be sacrificed.  Before long,
she'll be pregnant, and then
again.  Isn't that part of the thought
    
in the face, the dark knowledge
of what lies ahead?  She would seize
a chance if one were offered,
and she'd make as much of it
    
as possible
so say the brown eyes,
the spot of red above one cheek.
In reality, though, the painter's named
and she's not.  Finding her grave

    
for she's long since dead
would be
impossible.  Her sole moment of fame
remains this pose, the brushstrokes
by his hand in somber hues.

___________________________________________________________________________
    
PATRICICA CLARK is the poet-in-residence and an associate professor of English at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, where she teaches Creative Writing and a variety of other English courses. Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as Slate, Poetry, The New Criterion, New England Review, Pennsylvania Review, North American Review, Seattle Review, and Iowa Woman.  Her book of poems, North of Wondering, won the first book competition by Women-in-Literature, Inc. and was published in fall 1999.  She has also co-edited an anthology of contemporary women writers called Worlds in Our Words, published in 1997 by Blair Press/Prentice Hall.   Her essay "Walking into Poetry" appeared recently in Sleeping With One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival (from the University of Georgia Press).

"La Chanson Du Rossignol" appeared locally in an alternative newspaper/magazine called Freeman.

Order NORTH OF WONDERING at: Women in Literature Inc., P.O. Box 60550,
Reno, NV 89506.    $15.50 includes a $2 charge for shipping/handling.  

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