Elegy for Grace Paley

I.

The day of her death was not a dark cold day:
It was the end of summer, and the roads leaked
heat by noon because of the dewy night
and the humid morning.

The town was crowded, and sidewalks full;
pigeons congregated on the corner of Main and Railroad
not doing anything, but you would have noticed them.

You meddled with the mundane, the simple,
yet the voices of thousands bubbled
up through the ink and they spoke
their silences; you used that pen of yours

the black one, as if it were your third lung; you used it to collect
all the life you could. You used it because you knew
you had to. But it doesn’t matter, because few speak
your name; the pigeons don’t care if you notice them.

The sun pulled sweat
from our foreheads that day,
as on every other August day.
You slid from the world quietly,

and the shift in the balance was delicate,
too fine to notice.

II.

What is left, before yielding
to the bitter autumn air,
is a sweetness on the tip of your tongue
when you suck in the last of the summer humidity:
A tender, simple aftertaste.
you can miss it if you breathe
too quickly, and swallow too harshly.
Grace caught the seasons
In her mouth, and mulled
them slowly, savoring each taste
so that she wouldn’t miss a thing
offered to her in this world,
so she would learn to love it all.

Rewrite

Rewrite of Growth


Growth

Well I can see you now,
eyes closed and arms full
of flowers, still dripping dirt,
roots lolling around your fingers,
as I look out through the kitchen window.

You told me the names of the flowers once,
but I can never recall them,
and I suddenly have the urge to ask
you what they are,
because I don’t want to keep forgetting.

Your glasses have slid
down your nose just a bit,
and it makes you appear much older
(perhaps older than I’d like
to admit you are).
I can see your mouth open,
sighing with the strain of age,
as you stand to survey your work.

You take a breath, eyes gazing,
a sense of accomplishment draped
across your squinting eyes, and your half-open mouth.

I can see you now
lean the rake against the tree,
the sun dipping into the mountains behind you,
and I commit this image to memory, because I am terrified
that one day I’ll forget it.

Rewrite

(Welcome to the world of poetry - rewrites are absolutely necessary. The next couple of entries will be rewrites of poems I've already posted. I'm sure you'll see more versions in the future).

Rewrite of Raspberries


My Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is picking raspberries.
Vines enveloped the fence
in a deep green net;
Fat, bubbly berries sprinkled
across the faded wood.
For hours I rolled them across my palms,
leaving tracks of crimson and vermilion.
I bit their waxy surfaces, pursed my lips
and twisted my tongue around the tart pulp.
I never actually liked raspberries,
but I imaged myself layered behind petticoats
and lace, picking berries in a garden
from centuries before.