someday i'll go where there ain't no rain or snow (and i dream of a place called home)

[two-grey-rooms.livejournal.com]

"Stones"
birds not so much the ducks and geese okay not horses cows pigs
she'd lived in the city all her life some cats and dogs okay as part

of someone else's narrative the posted photographs are someone's
pets the figurines less figurative than graceful to behold the same

with carved giraffes and camels no reptiles no amphibians nothing
from the sea although she loved the sea her passion was for stones

I don't know why the parquet floor never buckled and caved collapsed
into the rooms below her rooms all the horizontal surfaces were covered

with stones the bureau the cupboards the closets were full of the precious
stones she wore at her throat her ears her fingers her wrists the inlaid

tables held ceramic bowls of polished stones the antique desk a basket
of stones a bushel of stones on the floor on the windowsills more stones

each one unique each one a narrative the étagère held up to the light stones
hewn from the source and hauled up here still jagged refracting every

shade of amethyst her birthstone like my mother's crystals shimmering
as if alive rescued from the field the cliff the shore the riverbed I found

a single cufflink by her bed a tiny diamond set in silver did her father
sift out at his flour mill the dangerous stones I stretched out beside her

in her bad time thinking to help her sleep I held her hand her fingers wore
a few of her favorite rings the two of us lay entirely still atop the quilt

a stiff sarcophagus she didn't sleep her mind was an etched plate
from which she drew off print after print the framed prints on the walls

were all interiors our talk had always been a stone kicked down a hill
no purpose no destination her father her mother my mother my dogs

she never said she was leaving me in charge she wasn't my mother why
put me in charge I put the jewels on other throats and wrists I threw away

the bushels of cosmetics and perfume her chosen armaments
against the world who loved the world I sold the breakfront

cabinet full of cut-glass bowls and blown-glass figurines but who
will save the living stones she loved I have so many already

in my yard half-in half-out of the earth immovable
she'd seen my yard she'd seen those heavy stones
--Ellen Bryant Voigt


"Oak"

not to board the bus but wait for the last bell
like those who live in town shuffling ahead of her the clumps
drift apart drift back shifting boys in a cluster now a boy and a girl
a dance a recess game as each is subtracted one by one into the houses
she passes the windows half-lidded by half-drawn shades
or framed by curtains and sash she likes
                                        walking alone
along the verge of the lawns no fence no field the leaves
drifting out from under the oaks while in the woods
they would only settle and rot she likes the way a passing car
releases them across the grid of the sidewalk a solid math
for a solitary girl the small steps into the larger
world of strangers wholly indifferent houses cars rust-colored dog
she passes the hardware grocery pharmacy beauty salon every Thursday
you've noticed such a child content to be invisible
scuffing the leaves
                   toward the bungalow the hushed backroom
where someone is propped in the high bed her webbed face
her halo of hair past humankind and all its suffering
past seeing now past death too old for death
and waiting for this girl
                          who thumbs the latch
who lifts the lid of the black box lifts from red felt those silver pieces
fits them together the trick is to breathe across and not
into the small round hole as her arched fingers hover
over the other open holes each finger knows its task she's fixed
to one purpose Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee

dark out in the street the wind ruffling oak leaves the dark
window lit by the silver flute the white ghost hair the brighter
lights is it her mother come to drive her home

--Ellen Bryant Voigt


"Noble Dog"
behind our house down to the brook and the woods
beyond the groomed grass and flower beds what we see
are brook and woods and sometimes mild creatures of the field
we thought when we bathed in the claw-footed tub we could pretend
we stayed inside the natural world no shutters no shades at night

beside the mirror over the sink the windows darkened into mirrors
where my daughter at thirteen admired her tan her new body until she felt
or thought she felt something move outside in the yard and asked quietly
up the backstairs for us to come down here for just a minute please
come down here now we couldn't tell how much was fear

how much was shame we thought she needed us to be calm
we tried to be calm like the trooper we called who said without alarm
to the handsome noble dog where is he buddy where is he buddy
at which as if in a game of fetch the dog went straight around the house
to the one smell that didn't fit to the one smell that crossed the clipped grass

into the ditch beside the dirt road where the dog went too the dog
tracking the smell the trooper tracking the dog the dog
not barking or baying until the scent stopped
inside the culvert bearing the brook west under the road
a large metal pipe that amplified the dog's whimpers and moans
dog of righteousness dog of retribution

we heard it from our house where soon the shutters would go up
we sat in the kitchen the summer air soft as a damp rag we knew
this was a moment of consequence but we couldn't tell
whether the world had grown larger or smaller
--Ellen Bryant Voigt


"Geese"

there is no cure for temperament it's how 
we recognize ourselves but sometimes within it
a narrowing imprisons or is opened such as when my mother
in her last illness snarled and spat and how this lifted my dour father
into a patient tenderness thereby astounding everyone
but mostly it hardens who we always were

if you've been let's say a glass-half-empty kind of girl
you wake to the chorus of geese overhead
forlorn for something has softened their nasal voices
their ugly aggression on the ground they're worse than chickens
but flying one leader falling back another moving up to pierce the wind
no one in charge or every one in charge in flight each limited goose
adjusts its part in the cluster just under the clouds
do they mean together to duplicate the cloud
like the pelicans on the pond rearranging their shadows
to fool the fish another collective that constantly recalibrates but fish
don't need to reinvent themselves the way geese do
when they negotiate the sky
                           on the fixed
unyielding ground there is no end to hierarchy
the flock the pack the family you know it's true if you're
a take-charge kind of girl I recommend
houseplants in the windows facing south
the cacti the cyclamen are blooming on the brink
of winter all it took was a little enforced deprivation
a little premature and structured dark

--Ellen Bryant Voigt


"Sleep"

another heavy frost what doesn't die or fly away
the groundhog for instance the bear is deep in sleep I'm thinking
a lot about sleep translation I'm not sleeping much
who used to be a champion of sleep
ex-champions are pathetic my inner parent says the world
is full of evil death cruelty degradation not sleeping
scores only a 2 out of 10
                         but a moral sense
is exhausting I am exhausted a coma looks good to me
if only I could be sure there'd still be dreams it's what I miss the most
even in terrible dreams at least you feel what you feel not what
you're supposed to feel your house burns down so what
if you survived you rake the ashes sobbing
                                          exhausted
from trying not to smoke I once asked for a simple errand
from my beloved who wanted me not to smoke he forgot unforgivable
I fled the house like an animal wounded enraged I was thinking 
more clearly than I had ever thought my thought was why

prolong this life I flung myself into the car I drove like a fiend
to the nearest store I asked unthinking for unfiltered Luckies oh
brand of my girlhood I paid the price I took my prize to the car I slit
the cellophane I tapped out one perfect white cylinder I brought to my face
the smell of the barns the fires cooking it golden brown smell of my father
my uncles my grandfather's tin of loose tobacco his packet of delicate paper
the deliberate way he rolled and licked and tapped and lit and drew in
and relished it the smell of the wild girls behind the gym the boys
in pickup trucks I sat in my car as the other cars crept by 
I looked like a pervert it was perverse
a Lucky under my nose
                     I drove myself home
I threw away the pack which was unwise the gods
don't notice whining they notice the brief bright flares of human will
they lean from their couches yes more fear and dread for that one
yes let's turn the suffering up a notch let's watch her
strike the match I strike it now when I wake
in the dark I light that little fire

--Ellen Bryant Voigt