D SPERRY FINLAYSON

Early April

Bach for unaccompanied cello.
A roaring wind has blown away an all-day rain
And sweeps the sunlit pines and birches
Back and forth
Against the fuzzy grape-grey wall of Bible Hill.
Birches shining white, with dark red buds
Toss in the wind; steel blue-grey clouds
Still there behind the hill.
Overhead, a cold pure blue. The lowering sun is yellow.
I slide the glass to see and breathe it all
Because I heard a chickadee, even from indoors,
Piping sweet-sour from high up in the pines.

Rolling and churning, dark brown sonorities
Of cello flood out, rasped velvet, from behind me
Warm air and cello music, out into the wind
Cold-blowing, and the bird's thin, high, and individualist song.

These things will never coincide for me
In quite this way again.
This afternoon's serenity lets me see
That somehow, that is glorious.

Foggy Beach at Santa Barbara

Thank you, gleamer and pounder,
Thank you, tall translucence,
Wide and long, and edged in foam,
Crashing in foam, froth spreading
Up the sloping beach.
Gather up, and wait, pound down.

Kelp necklaces in long lines, brown and ochre
Woven with grasses, green and gold,
Pieces of shell, wood splinters— a feather….
Or gathered into nests and arabesques
Calligraphy telling the exact Word
The flat horizon pigeon grey on grey.

Behind, dry mountains irrigated into gardens,
Studded thick with houses
Appear and disappear within the fog.
Between the oriental ocean and the mountains
The flatness of brown beach; the stucco town
Screened off by an improbable line of palms
A traffic separated into cyclists, runners, walkers, skaters,
A metallic stream of cars.

Only the silver ocean matters
And the beach to walk beside it.
Life narrowing down to ocean
Its chilled breath, its sound, its rhythm
Up and back.
The moving dazzle upon it
When the clouds break;
The quiet within its clear
and yellow-green-walled thunder.

The Giddy Name

The name is sunlight flashing on the surface
Of a deep lake. Lower down
Light filters through in blues and browns and greens
A swimmer's gold arms scull—her legs glow green
A school of glinting fish turns here, turns there.
There are lilies on the surface, with a heavy scent
But they are near the shore. Their stems slant down
Accompanying the light.

The lake is very clear as far as light gives vision. But further down—
Who knows what moves ...
What's lying there suspended;
Still, kept balanced by a flick of fin.

From deep down looking up the water glows.

To Think That I Saw It . . .

The hat was what first made me notice—
Broad brimmed, high crowned
And tapered at the top, in woven straw.
He turned around…
An ancient Chinese gentleman
With white silk whiskers
Tapering to two points.
I know him— a Venerable Sage!
A pale blue jacket
Striped seersucker, and under that
A knitted cardigan the color of oatmeal.
Trousers a little baggy
In pale and creamy yellow.

He leaned upon his cane.
His face smooth-carved, old ivory.
He was, in all
An object of such beauty…
That I drove on exulting.
And this—in Boston's inner suburbs
On Saturday, at noon.

South End Snow

'Storms back to back'
Translated, means:
It's snowed for four days now
Almost non-stop.
The neighborhood
And all the world for all we know
Is deeply piled in white.
Every supportive surface,
Street, windowsill, roof,
Tree branch, rail of iron fence,
Maintains its white allotment.

This morning it still is snowing
The air's still milky, moving.
This special sense
Of different time and space,
City transformed,
Can stay a little longer.
When the wind shifts
The snowflakes hit the windows…
A dry fragmented sound
There is no word for it.

The word cannot be god.
There is no word
For the sound the snowflakes
Make against the glass.
(Scrither and stritch?)
Or for the quality of attention
Of the velvet cat
I hold up in my arms at upstairs window.
We both gaze out through snow
At starlings
Feeding in yellow branches of the honeylocust.
Birds black and heavy
Bending down the branches,
Flying back and forth
To chimneys and roof edges.
(Crouched figures
Shovel sidewalks down below.)
The cat is purring, very faintly,
Relaxed and watching.

God is what is.

Last night when I walked out
A man with suitcases
Dark shape approaching
Toward the yellow light
Between piled banks of white.
He set his cases down
Under a streetlamp.
"Those look heavy" I said.
"Especially coming from the airport
After trying to fly away!"
"Where did you hope to go?"
"To California."
We both laughed —not ruefully—
Happily, like children.
He wore a yellow knitted hat and scarf,
A parrot costume, jacket in blue and red.
Round gold-rimmed glasses,
Face reddened by the cold. Young.
(The cold small tongues of snowflakes
On my cheeks.)

The pizza place was warm and busy, and smelled fine.
A bearded man took orders on the phone
And told his oriental helper
To give me my takeout box.
And everyone was smiling
The shared secret of our pleasure in the weather
In the way everything was changed
And beautiful, and inconvenient.

Along the snowy street again
My box of pizza warm against my arm
Smelling of cheese and eggplant and warm dough.
A young black woman
In dark knitted cap, gold earrings,
Was shoveling the sidewalk
In front of Tom's, (our neighbor).
She said she'd done our other neighbor's too.
“I did such a good job
That this man hired me right away!
Enjoy your pizza!”
She whistled, toneless and cheerful,
And scraped and scooped
The cold white purity
Onto the line of cars against the curb
Which seemed a train of loaf cakes
Each one extravagantly piled with icing.

Upstairs, looking through the snowing
We saw the lighted Christmas trees
In the bay windows of each row house
Up and down the block.

The Chorus

"Tragedy is the wrong path
Knowingly and irrevocably taken."

There is a drawing by Leonardo
Sepia ink on now buff-colored paper.
Nothing much; a fragment of woods,
A group of trees, exquisitely seen.

All things are relative
Which may be why
The apparition seemed so powerful.
I drove the rented truck
Far into the outer suburbs
To pick up two new bookcases
Made of sawdust pressed into plastic.
Grey day in March, with rain,
The usual dreary roadscape
Of fast food, car lots, warehouses
So easy to get lost
When everything looks alike, and ugly.
But we're all used to it; we keep on driving on
Don't we? Huge parking lot, of course.
I parked beside the warehouse
Opened the car window
Drank in the sweet damp-blowing air
And heard wild birds crying, harsh and rich.

Ahead, the asphalt ended.
A plain of thick beige marsh grass, not far across
And then the woods, in middle distance…
Far enough away to seem to float
Within the mist, but near enough
For us to hear the birds.
A cloud of smudged maroon made of bare branches
The tree trunks drawn in browns, or in some places
Nearly white ( the Sycamores?)
And all the cloud alive, twittering, rustling, throbbing,
With birds and wind and life.
(Isn't it early in the year for birds?)
It seemed a breathing organism, and miraculous
Floating, pulsing, extravagantly living
Veiled by thin rain and fog.

"How big is that wetland?" I asked.
"It used to be much bigger.
They cut it in half to build the road.
There used to be a river, but it had to be re-routed."
I said, "Then it will die."
And the young man said, as knowing, "Yes."
The look we gave each other
Was chorus to tragedy.
And not just this one, local—
The Tragedy that saturates it All.
But nevertheless, he sold me bookshelves.
And nevertheless, I bought them.

Strong Words After a Fall

Things not to be said aloud
Can be said here.
They have the authenticity of dreams
And a dream's power.
Here I can say
That I am burned by lightning
In my deepest being.
You will not see.
You turn your icy back on me
To tend the hot altar.

On hands and knees
Kneeling on gravel in a world of ice
(The dark trees standing round)
Afraid the pain
Would make me vomit on myself
My first idea
"When she knows this
She'll know the truth. If I am broken
That will signify."
Child's hope, a childish injury.

The flaccid dead man of Vienna
Has fondled all our minds.
In his dictated story
There is no place for me
But ridicule and resentment, fear.
The mother of the grown is foolish at best
At worst dark sinister.

Or is it true? Am I
(Though vulnerable within myself, feeling such love)
In fact a monster, lying
Impervious in my acid bath?
Is my own living knowledge
Of my very self a lie?

There is no answer. Never mind.
I'll not die yet.
I love the world
And must account my gratitude.

Family Circus, Starring Adult Children

In this ring we have two sisters
Maneuvering in the limelight
Acting reacting
In relation to each other
A complicated dance of back and forth
One in a frenzy, the other holding back
Then the second as furiosa
Her sister sweet serenity

In the central ring the brother
Stands at bay
He watches or ignores the other action
Or battles with himself

The youngest sister sits in stillness
In a third ring watching all the others
Congratulating herself that here for once
She's not the agitating center

The brothers-in-law and -love
Move in and out
Sometimes they sigh in unison
Now and then one offers comment
They both look somewhat tired

Father and Mother sit along the side
These days the audience for the show
Not even to themselves
The main attraction.

The Poetry Reading

Last night we read aloud from Yeats
Each taking turn,
(I had not read aloud since school
And then, iron-bound by shyness
Nothing came to light.
Not knowing what it is I have not missed it.)

From opening reservoirs my voice flowed out
And I could modulate it
Moving from word to word
(None of it seen before).
I flew out with my voice
Letting resonance be here,
Dry spareness there
holding it up in pause
clipping it short
allowing voluptuous stainings in the air.
Like playing music. Like painting watercolor.
Moving as I pleased, but sent by words.

In this way
A poet both sings to us
And gives us songs.

And when it stopped—
On cool skin underneath my eyes, two tears;
I took them with my fingers…
But I was glowing strong.

Yeats gave me words to use
And of such power!
(I'd volunteered to read the part of First Attendant—
a small part, I thought, and neutral—
becomingly chosen, modest yet participating)
So there I was, speaking out
In the presence of men of my own kind
And disposition. Men who,
Being strangers, I could imagine heard me:

"Cry that wrong came not from me
But my virgin cruelty"

"An ancient Irish Queen
That stuck a head upon a stake"

"Girls that have governed cities
Or burned great cities down"

"She is crazy. That is why she is laughing."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A man then read: "...my savage, sunlit heart."
I took that for my own.

When it was over
And all was back to normal,
I felt that I had opened my drab clothing
And stepped out in silver spangles, reflecting light,
Dazzling myself and all the others
An interlude of Life!
Then wrapped up once again…
Once more discreetly quiet,
And well disguised.