Rebeca’s Poems

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June 24, 2022 Preface to Rebeca’s Writing The sun cast light through the bedroom window, onto the walls, and across the bed where Rebeca lay waiting to die. Morphine kept her comfortable while friends and family provided care and companionship 24 hours a day. During the past year, she’d had plenty of time to think about her hopes, events she’d miss - her youngest daughter’s high school graduation, and events she felt glad to miss - root canals. Rose, the eldest of her two daughters, folded laundry while listening to our meandering conversation about the weather, tree blossoms, birds outside, and people. When Rebeca commented, “I hope my writing is preserved,” I assumed she meant it for Rose’s ears. Although Elwin had been my companion for the previous nine years, Rebeca (his sister) and I weren’t close. I hadn’t even known that she was a writer and belonged to various writing groups, along with taking writing classes at Diablo Valley College. That was our last visit. She died May...

Verse 1 John ol’ John was a mean ol’ man He used to laugh behind his hand He stamped and sang with an ol’ jug bad and then he’d dance with me. Chorus Singing come along Come along come along Come and dance with me Singing come along come along come along come and dance with me Verse 2 We’d sit down Have a couple of beers He’d tell me stories from his years Sometimes we’d laugh down to our tears and then he’d dance with me. Verse 3 John ol’ John I know you’re gone your body got old But your love goes on And I’m real glad to pass it along Come and dance with me.

warm on my out-flung hand sun down the bark slant on the green slope and shake over water Laugh ducks bump by your head is gentle you are the Joy Flower with sun on your check and there is only Becoming. Karen [Rebeca's birth name was Karen Kelsey. sp]

Jan. 1, 1972 I will begin by saying I am Sarah, wearing an ancient mountain for a body, sometimes the moon, On loose days, I confuse my grasses with my hair, mix my birds in sun and deep. Don’t worry Father, I’m not crazy, just flexible. After all there is that thread or quiet pool where the always of me lives eating the old dead dances, singing them new again. Feb. 4, 1972 I went to see Anne today. We drank coffee in her cluttered kitchen, Molly bellowing out back. Molly is a cow. Sometimes we climb the hill pasture, lean against the fence. Molly always puts her chin on the rail between us, three women, we understand each other. In the kitchen I told Anne about the wood smell of my guitar, playing, careful scales while the baby’s asleep or songs with single notes falling over each other, while Jennifer chases the cat around the house. Then I remembered such uneasy, seeing David heavy in his chair at dinner, too tired. I feel guilty...

What has the rain, The wind, to do with two words Two names going up a hill? Wind Leaning grass together Bending moons caught in twigs on water Teasing coats around slacks Wind-leaves teasing cats around corners The tree shivered wind-leaves down The leaf I found How can I share it with a word? II Boy with sand shine hair, For gathering words to color the air And watch the light shine through, Let’s go listen to the light Ripple and pull at the edge of the sand In the sky shine by the sea. There after dark, once, the movements began Between the fire and fog Quick shadows on the sand On the fog on the fire Fell free in the sound by the sea In the sound there the movement the air There the air sound the sea. III In their violent union There Skaters There Swift circles ...

Rhythms that’s what she know. Not just the sweet her voice piano knowing the heart of the note of the phrase, but all the hands eyes the breath foot move head turn quick smile the levels in glasses shine the open close of doors sudden words here laugh there around the smoke we discover ourselves sung together. 1966 Diablo Valley; 28 September 1975 English 224

1966-1978 These poems are based on a loose collection of images which I brought back from New York City where I lived for a year 1966/67

Gas at Colfax sudden water around curves, red ball sun riding down on mountain rims, touch up through trees to patch the sides of hill. So much tall and space for eyes without bumping into buildings. Dusk at Donner, Truckee and side road to find sleep with creek and stars, trees and so much cold that, meeting heat between the hills, made bright fog drifts, morning going into Reno. Hot in Reno. Cross walks with people, Motels, rows of Restaurants, and everywhere signboards. Desert to hard mountains of desert leaning into night. Truck lights Moon sudden up in eyes of not sleeping all five of us in the car, in sand, nearly out of gas, back seat moan “Shit City. Day and colored cuts of mountains. Green lake, snow pass winding down to pine birch woods, dust and flies, and night fire for whiskey coffee. quiet, Quick woodpecker morning

Face of dry thin air to Sheer walls, like looking down the throat of Eons of Being and Snatches of wild River in Telescope of Marble spires, this God Place Planet Sigh

Green mountains Down into Red sand ache Hot From the center Of me Of air hum Flat Of my belly Burn naked cliff bones

Here Littlebird We Littlebird Godman Sun Tree Life Rose out of Sigh of Planet Our head love Touched Rain to corn leaf and moved mountains Your name is Written across maps Navajo Hopi Santo Domingo Scars on Our face Cherokee Sioux Camper trucked Ice cream coned children laugh at your house your hair grow the scars up black, and their shadow lights Our lies Great Christian Forefathers Built up a Nation You have not, now Want not You showed your head of love But No Guns No Ships Houses Papers So we willed you stole you off to Left over places Littlebird you Gave to me your Hand Love Told a canyon place river liquid chocolate sky “here” (hand on your head) Flash and roar and water wash and Afraid until Swallows and Liza...

No sleep, Tennessee green moves back to a town, hour there for breakfast, sultry air. She worked quickly, handing out plates of eggs, pouring coffee, making change. How do I speak to a Memphis negress? Through all the noise of a history of grief, How do I unspeak? Want to write Bus move makes funny shapes funny lines of flat land across train yards Sun haze on bay on tracks Brown hill underpass bricks and smoke smell overpass oil tanks Sun flash trees up to sky pale evening Car Car Car Sign Car Car Light And off slow dark mountains

Wind factory sound light roar like sleeping in washing machine or jumping taxi corners. Smells like sweet sick basements alley kitchens, pans and great spaghetti vats. Revolving doors of truck faces and pink gloved ladies. Dark woman watch, they’re waiting on corners “and nice ones too.” Tell it to the moon that you want, to your buddies beer and sandwiched at dirty tables, “niggers” you won’t let your children go to bed with them. Wind send dust messages to hurrying from bars to taxis, that it’s going to rain on your theaters brocade evening coats June night. Sky down on your buildings sticks scraps of papers to your walls streaks windows, fogs glasses going up hotel steps brown streamed. And tomorrow something of a sun of brown grey sky and all the moving over its reflection. III And tomorrow street ache blows along with papers ...

shine and spray out from tiny feet, laugh and fall of all those colors and gleams of little bodies, a long like the Milky Way or willow limb or pine shadow smile of a really hot day. And all you have to do is put your feet in soon as the policeman’s gone. III Little Person rides is a Flame in her seat on your back Leaps out smiles at All The people in the street In her hand a branch New Rose breathes open gleams Down another stem Curled dark petals drop on her arm All there is of Being They don’t see it or There wouldn’t be this city

He was a shiny shoe shine boy Knew how to talk to the cops that move him along 3 or 5 times a day She wore it like a Neon sign A funny proud “And it only cost” And was beginning to like it since everyone else seemed to Lady had a sort of planned charm; the way she held her head, her body move, she knew she was dressed well, stockinged, gloved and from behind one bra strap showing.

I This silence began with the noise of the city Han Shan speaks of it It is to help the Soul Be Like the Breath of the Breathless Suspended Open When that happens there can be speaking without so much senseless II Through blue flare of Ratan chair shadow fold of scarred wall in One Peacock feather flare the shapes and colors of the Universe turn on the Eye of the Soul Skirt flare and soft Sudden close to grace of Body move Stepping on or off of subways Turn their beauty from each other all that waste of love Only bird tracks The snow is almost Blue - All that noise Fire engines Crawling through snow - Faucet water So cold it felt Hot - Walking in the blizzard A little boy Gave Shellen a rubber ball - Stephen called me in to see a New Mobile Painted turpentine can hung and Spinning We watched It said Boing - Footsteps bumpbangs above Piano plunks below Plaster falling off the walls Twice the plumbers tore out...

Trembled from the remote of you this gift, as if there were a cave and deep, small flowers with their own Light. 1968; 10 October 1976 English 224

Stiff twigs in the window, winter sun slants on my arms I turn my hands palms up So you see, I am gentle too and hard angry and loving I dance, My breasts the warm of summer night earth my legs spring among rocks in thin bright afar. The last section of this poem represents a quality of aliveness. It is only partly literal. It is also a description of some of the ways I feel when I dance. 1969 11 October 1976. English 224

I lay at the surface of the Sea Half in darkness, half in Light Half in the deep of peace Half in the dance of life. 1975

It sure gets foggy here. It hangs high and every corner of the house is cold. It hugs down close and the hills disappear. Cats walk along fences Balancing on sharp rocks one sun crisp day, we learned to walk carefully, Sally and I stretching our legs we found a purple anemone and a naked man who makes movies, and hollow places in waves filled with pale green light. February 1975

In the window clouds shift silent Bright brown hills turn black edged with fog A small dirt road rises from the valley Red or grey or yellow house, and great beast trees stretching I smell sour weed wind Touch your body shapes with my hand Or make word designs mirrors small sculptures or a dancer in midair Seeking balance I hold a wood spoon an egg In the kitchen children fight or play I am a lion mother watching The rhythms change Flapping and struggling I emerge new leaves in my hair my body spread among the sky the sea. February 1975

You are a dancer deep in earth among roots and herbs. I like to be with you riding in the car with the top down drinking tea from your thermos, past rows of cabbages on the way to the dentist. June 1975

I watch clouds shift. Bright brown hills turn black edged with fog. I smell the sour weed wind touch your body shapes with my hands or make word designs mirrors small sculptures a dancer in mid air. seeking balance I hold a wooden spoon, an egg, in the kitchen children fight or play. I am a lion mother watching the rhythms change. Flapping and struggling I emerge new, leaves in my hair, my body spread among the sky the sea.

Here In the middle of the sky watching The mountains lakes and streams change their shapes I like hanging out with you my reflections my Lover shoulder deep in ferns mosquitoes and flies smell of hot Sun Earth make a jungle of these pine woods Little sandy beach The cliffs rising from their reflections in open water I spread my arms to feel your wide Dance of Deep Heart wind out of old moon caves dry needles and dust Across slopes of sheer rock to quiver tiny rainbows In your shallow waters. 6 August 1975

Single leaf or leaves piled in corners, fields of leaves. puddles bright with clouds crowded rainbow prism lights muffled, soon lost to foot splash English 224

Long leaves Arch lean out over their shadows green shine or brown bent seem to move from Roots instead of air 17 September 1976 English 224

Gentle in the bones of thy face this Silver ringing light, a note without a sound. 17 September 1976 English 224

Sun Rock Dusty Tough hide Like some sleeping Beast Curled in on itself. 17 September 1976 English 224

What other sound sea than gull cry fall on your moons in your sound no sound Echo? The same as slipping in rain weeds night hill home. And later just before I close the door, sea sound clouds Moons on my steps I almost hear the cry fall out of some dream? sense of something to remember. 19 September 1976 English 224

beneath lighter sounds water gulps beats deep and ring taste of stone Bite of pine breath Space of mountain or small reflecting pond 20 September 1976 English 124

Talking with Hand sweep Head turn and lean Rattle tumble voices word here laugh there Among hot grease smells Shine table tops Shadows of arms fingers at rest The open close of doors Bump and screech of chairs Glass and chrome Cold currents of air. 27 September 1976 English 224

Among the flowers and the children there is a body of a dead bird and the ancient cold growling of the sea, old men chanting. I am glad I can come home to you, lie down in a warm bed feeling the hard and soft of your body. We are the outline of a gentle flower, The place between us where our hearts are, open naked and full of light. 28 September English 224

If you don’t shit before sundown, there’s always midnight moon pine snow. 8 October 1976. English 224

Bright from the water you sprinkle me. Cool you gentles me rocking me soft among Sun sand and pine granite, touch of you melting me infinite. 4 October 1976 English 224

Sometimes I write love poems with my teeth to remind you of your own sweet juices. 10 October 1976 English 224

I like to snuggle up To grease underneath sides lumpy bump metal shapes nameless things, To freckled sun mound by curly pine root scuffle of something small, To rooms full of lounging laugh sudden eyes touch without words, and to you. 14 October 1976. English 224

That music, Belly full of Yes, Flings my hair, Shivers my bones, Leap and Squat; Still, I won’t be the first to Get up and Dance. 15 October 1976

I am a crazy woman. I live alone I go around in bare feet and sing songs to myself. and sometimes to my lovers. We roll around and laugh and bite “give me your breasts.” “What, you want I should leave them on the bureau?” “Sure, I’ll give you a deposit.” Roll around and get peanut butter and apples and bite “I know about you, you peanut butter your women.” and roll around and laugh and bite until that Thunder Flower between us bursts and we touch in reverence. 11 October 1976 English 224

Television scraps in the house and under trees dry with broken leaves a haze I can taste the skin wrinkle on my bones. 11 October 1976

Yes I know They’ve cut off your long hair, your face is swollen your body curling in on itself. Like a brown leave you are beautiful. When you look at me I see you in there, Seventeen, Hair piled high, wearing a fine gown. At thirty you lost your two youngest and your man In one season. Praying to remain gentle, you threw snowballs with your children, Became a seamstress And treasurer for Bad Axe, Michigan. Then a farmer’s wife, you lifted milk cans, Lugged feed sacks, Stuffed fruit into jars, Jostled with friends in Sunday carts, Singing hymns on your way to the lake. When your second man died you came to California. I was six when I first saw you, Tall Breasts and waist Black braids wound round your head, Bright dark eyes. You became a practical nurse, Pruned your own trees And rented a room to Mrs. Johnson. At Christmas you made Stroganoff and fudge And had us all over for dinner. You gave us such gifts of yourself. Thank you. 15 October 197...

I heard you say “The other chick was really ugly.” Well turkey I hope you find out the lady you’re drooling over has silicone boobs plastic surgery scars and thinks yours is too short anyway 22 October 1976. English 224

Today the winds blows bleak against my teeth And shivers down my back to ache my feet. It runs my nose, with grit it stings my eyes, This wind of weeds and bone tree cloud dark skies. 29 October 1976 English 224

1. Iambic pentameter I do not like the show that’s on tonight. I saw a lady walking with her dog. The streets are wet because we’ve had a rain. If I must write this way I’ll go insane. I think I’m getting rhythm on the brain. He plans to leave this eve ning on the train. I November 1976. English 224

2. Dialogue in iambic pentameter “Do you know who you’re voting for Marie?” “Well, no because I do not really see What different it will make if either wins. They both are part of the machine you know.” “I do not know just what machine you mean.” “It’s David Rockefeller and his mob. Controlling wealth and markets, costs of good in Europe and Japan as well as here.” “But what makes you believe that this is true?” “Some people starve and some are millionaires. Inflation makes my life feel insecure. And anyways I heard it on the news.” 1 November 1976. English 224

Grandmother is sick and I am tired. My head is aching in a pain- ful way. I would like to brush my teeth and then retire. Besides I haven’t any more to say. 1 November 1976. English 224

My friends and I we climbed the hills A sunrise for to see, We spread our blankets on the ground And drank our morning tea. A chant we hummed all while the sun Did fill our bones with light, Then someone found on looking round That Jeanne was out of sight. By this I mean she was quite lost And nowhere to be found. We searched among the thick of bush And hallows of the ground. In piles of leaves by gnarled trees, Through weeds still wet from frost, We wandered till not one of us Remembered she was lost. Then in a while we heard a smile Of voice sweet as a hymn Above our heads in deep of trees ‘Twas Jeanne sprawled on a limb. As day wore on our clothes wore off. ‘Twas warm upon the ground, So deep in Earth of colors bright And dancing all around Then in the sky a sound we heard Of helicopter roar. Two the police all checking out Our bods and nothing more. We smiled and waved and they remained A while then went away. They did not send the squad car to ...

The woods late one afternoon the smell of sawdust heaps of broken logs, the light through cracks and chinks aslant across my lap. I waited with my breath quiet half in fright. A quiet chill began to move among the corners with a shadow dusk and then the night came in around me and the sound of dogs on gravel barking at the men. They walked along the driveway with the bird, fresh chopped and bled and dangling by her feet. I held my breath and shivered in the dark They passed quite close and called me in to eat. I hid there trying not to see her dead, Then slept, and later woke up in my bed. 15 November 1976 English 224

The warm the thigh and fur of us at night all down among the covers while a chill of dark clings close about us, and our sight turns inward, filled with summer apples, still, in nests of leaves on dusty afternoons The glance the near of us in rooms with sun and paper plates of food, and cups of wine, and friends who snuggle down with us, all one on piles of pillows, cradled in the shine of candle music, pipe smoke and the moon. So if at breakfast by electric light, we eat not tasting, kiss in ritual flight and spend some days quite separate and alone this makes more cherished learning to be one. 22 November 1976 English 224

It was raining the day we left The kitchen was steamy, The windows fogged over so you couldn’t see the pine trees, only different shades of grey. Looking out you could imagine being anywhere, in a plane on top of some wild mountain. When Dad came home he didn’t say a thing just went into the bedroom and shut the door, and the air got all heavy. Funny I didn’t notice ‘till then the lines around Mom’s mouth or the stiff way she moved, stirring pans of something. She put her spoon down turned around and said, Jeff, get your sister ready to go out and yourself too. Then it was almost dark and Mom and Annie were on the porch, putting on their boots. I remember no one had turned on the living room lights. I saw the furniture shadowy, huddled like old people, just before I closed the door. 6 December 1976 English 224

New York City Lower East Side For a Christmas tree we had Cactus Spoons in a pot on a cloth covered cardboard box, and one candle. Window moon in the waxed wood floor tambourines and chimes. In the morning we received one red negligee, one bottle of men’s cologne, two satin sack hangers, (to hang our blue jeans on) and a blizzard gingerbread tenements fluffy fire escapes. Afternoon bright garbage streets, sunset part snow like breath with pigeon tracks and kids. We wrote Noel for them for bone grey men huddled on doorsteps. 17 December 1976 English 224

Sometimes I wear a mountain for a body, ridge backed belly to earth watching. On loose days I confuse my grasses with my hair, mix my birds in sun and deep. Don’t worry Father I’m not crazy, just flexible. After all, there is that cave where the always of me lives, eating the old dead dances sometimes singing them new again. Monday Nite Poetry Workshop English 222

Striding through open meadows over slab granite to push up along a western slope of pine ridge. Loose rock or rock half buried late sun stretching long through shadows red on dry needles sliver on log bark gold on winter grass. Down a north east hollow to crunch across blue ice snow creek frozen solid bite of pine breath pause heart pounding warm amidst silence Bear Country distance deep mountain wind. Another rise the lake opens out behind silhouettes of trees thin ice to distant sun shore lines of yellow grass and small evergreens, east white granite and red volcanic peaks. 12 December 1976

When they came to this meadow we watched from our doorways. They brought sticks and balls, shouts and running, so that mice ran into their holes, cicadas hid under thistles. They wore colored creatures on their hands making them speak to our children, telling them that our songs and prayers are the wrong songs and prayers. They seem to think that God has only one kind of songs and prayers. How lonely it must be to know so few. English 222 1 January 1977 English 224

In the beginning the Earth is round the moon is out there not up there, and standing on a beach watch the Sun reflecting long on shifting water, does not go down. We are turning into Earth-shade. All the people we can see, stepping down from buses, wrapped in scarves, getting in or out of cars, carrying bags of groceries, walking slowly. and all the people we can not see, squat in rice fields, shoulder deep in ditches, lighting incense, bone mothers, sleeping on sidewalks with long bellied babies, we are companions on this tiny planet, hurtling through space, born naked, sometimes afraid, sometimes full of wonder, often lonely. 7 January 1977 English 224

Having walked through many colors and smells, Nights with teeth, Afternoons thick with sun, just now I am tired, of moons and wet rocks, of the weight of your body hunger, of food that taste like horse feed, of foods that taste good and make me fat. Some part of me is always Tree, wet and dry, light and dark, long earth toes, bright sky fingers, slightly new with leaves, quiet without leaves, always standing awake. 14 February 1977 English 222

Some car screech, mean child, bitch gossip, dirty old man, new war, garbage street day. I spit myself a cave, and you better not give me any of that Almond Blossom Shit. Later when a damp feather weed sun field, safe as my bedroom morning comes along. I will bring out my dulcimer and sing, knowing I am alive knowing I will die, grateful for your company. 25 February 1977 English 222

You stand looking down at me, a stiff lean stalk, eyes full of seeds. Moonday Nite Poetry Workshop

Once when I kissed your eyes, your careful face slipped away, leaving such tenderness around me your arms full of children coming home with colored stones in their pockets and night sires twisting in the streets Moonday Nite Poetry Workshop

The way you fling through dapple grey days on Ericson’s skateboard, or roll down moon stubble fields on your way to dinner at Torrey’s restaurant, chuckles me or awe as if I were small at the ocean, standing damp in sun fog. The rush and suck at boulders with black cave voices swallowing me, until I am afraid I may go out altogether. Instead, Father carries me piggyback to a fire with hotdogs and marshmallows with soft warm centers. God I’ll never get enlightened this way. Published in the first letter of poetry of the Moonday Nite Press, copyright May 1978

Jessica stood in the yard, translucent, touching lightly the distant yellow hills. “Old lady,” children whispered, passing on the other side of the hedge, so she moved her grey bulk across the grass and took clothes from the line, folding them into a plastic basket. On the porch the cat crouched by the door, waiting to run inside. At dusk, while she ate cottage cheese from a bowl and the two clocks ticked, a moth kept battering itself against the kitchen light. When she went to bed, out of habit, she listened for the child. “It’s all right,’ she used to say to him, “It’s just the wind.” And she had been comforted. In another room, her father and her aunt, who had once noticed death in the eyes of the flowered sofa, laughed raucous, pure. She longed to be with them. Her mother, smiling and smiling, was left out too, since she thought of them as savage children unable to see the obvious design of life. Jessica had heard about it at Sunday School. Jesus didn’t want her to hit he...

Sitting on the floor, people talking you in a chair behind me, I almost lean back against you almost touch me. Printed in the third letter of poetry of the Moonday Nite Press, Copyright June 1978

I am in love again? Or is it the first time melting among your summer waters familiar as if you were always there, afternoons on the porch rain dripping off the trees. Or that time I slid down a culvert landed on hands and knees before bushes with ripe blackberries I laughed then listened . . . And when I stood on train tracks watching men poling logs down river I used to turn half expecting to see you. Sometimes I long for you having forgotten you are already here. Printed in the third letter of poetry of the Moonday Nite Press Copyright August 1978

I may die at any moment. Until that time comes, I will take my history books into the field to read with crunchy leaves and wild oats for company. I will arch and slink with my cats through winter mustard. If I sprout poems like weeds or barnacles on my rocks, or rainbows in my belly, they are are as much a wonder to me as they are to you.

We made love in the full of the day In a loft admist moun tains of hay, Then when he fell asleep From beneath I did creep And stole softly his mov ney away.

You Love Her run in the Sun Laugh at her laughing will you Change her shitty pants?

no one ever takes out the toaster. it sneaks around at night, gleams, dangles its cord over the edge of the kitchen counter.

Ginsburg Myself to you And that is of what Sky is Sing to speak for the Love the bodies you have Given the world To each other and I believe No I am. And all comes of it but the Afraid and unsaid untouching of our lives I am not - afraid - I am was cut too clean from myself once and the breathing comes back slow the breathing

The other day a new preacher came through town. He stretched out tall over us, his face white as paper, his hands fluttering like paper. He said, “You folks know about death: the way it slinks around rooms nibbling on paint, peeling wallpaper. Gets in between the walls and gnaws on the plumbing like it was old bones. Or it messes with the weather holding back the rain until everybody’s gasping then lets it go all at once and piles up people and house into broken towns half a mile downstream, and all the time just chuckling to itself. So some folks get scared and they build themselves big strong houses that no flood can shove around. And they pay other people to keep them painted all the time so they won’t see any peeling going on. And they hire to kill the chickens and pigs - they roast for Sunday dinner - so they won’t have to listen to them squawk. And maybe for awhile they forget about death. Sooner or later the skin begins to wrinkle on their bones, or the newspapers and T.V. remi...

Light still on at dawn I walked out into the wet grass the sun rose an old dog came put his head in my lap and died

was those red and green traffic lights splashed all over the street made me skip in puddles laugh and catch this damn cold

Ancient new star the silence be that one breath of not thank you not praise hand on an alter of stone

in your fair eyes a dream sometimes floats a field of warm flowers gentle move yellow sometimes purple or white without shadows —-hair shining fall laughing you are small in a darker place crying for your absence where is the sun shine on like the shining and not on yours

Death you stalk from behind. No man stands with a gun in my guts, I hear about it on the six o’clock news. My body isn’t tangled with mental and glass on some freeway, I see it on the six o’clock news. When I turn you vanish. I only catch you in glimpses, night siren, the body of a a cat along the road. When you’re through playing, I’ll look you in the eye and there will be that deep thunder laugh of recognition and we will bite and struggle, fall make love surrender.

Evening slid from Earth leaving Blue steep and Single silhouettes A Time A Fence A light over a table back there along the Grey road Crickets Pigs Park And Somewhere Chimes

July in your jeans or without your jeans draped on a boulder arms dangling cheek to stone curve or sun flesh small in this black green river pool canyon.

In the park and in the room the heat was the same. It pressed on their arms, their faces. They sat by the open window in the dark room. Across the air shaft the garment factory kept up its roar and lights most of the night. From time to time workers came out on the ledge and passed a bottle back and forth. Iris lit a cigarette. Matthew watched the glow move from her mouth to the window sill. Behind them the child slept sprawled naked on a sleeping bag beside the bed. A prostitute had spoken to the child that morning as they were leaving the hotel. “You like to suck your thumb. I used to suck my thumb when I was little.” She was accompanied by an old man. “Ain’t you pretty!” She turned to Iris “There’s a good cheap breakfast place if you’re new in town. It’s over there.” She pointed. Iris and Matthew had ordered two breakfasts and shared with child. After that they had taken a bus to the Guggenheim Museum. A Micro Sculpture in a space full of sun from sky lights! An exhibit of Pau...

Having lost my uterus I have gained the world ——or some such scriptural comment gone awry — Children leaping past my window or tilting by on stilts Birch leaves reddening to brown, And two nights with demons muttering in the living room. - part of me floating in bed part adrift in the closet or in some other vast darkness v trying to make you hear me so that I will know I am Both hot and cold until time I cradle in the middle of me a world of exquisite perfection, now, so that in the hospital bed next to mine Peggy’s crushed knee is part of the end of suffering. And in the recovery room, when the nurse holds and soothes a small boy, just waking from anesthesia, I am comforted.

When Jeffrey was six years old Mr. Valini killed a chicken, and because Jeffrey was afraid, he locked himself in the bathroom. He climbed up on the edge of the tub and watched out the window, but there was only the inside of the sun porch. Mr. Valini knew that Jeffrey was afraid so he brought the dead chicken to the window and held it up by its legs. The wings hung open and there was no head at the end of its neck. Jeffrey started at the bird and hated Mr. Valini. Then he came out of the bathroom and played with his cars in the driveway. He made roads with gravel-barked curves, then guided his logging trucks around them, lying with his head on the ground to make the trucks look large and real. Mrs. Valini was Jeffery’s babysitter. She had men relatives who came in from work at the sawmill and seemed too big for the kitchen chairs when they sat at the table. They drank black-looking wine, talking in a language Jeffery couldn’t understand. The kitchen smelled like the wine and like bea...

She brought her new husband, and the guacamole he made, and drinks she made, and a new baby in her belly, and wonder at how everything everyone gave her matched her new apartment.

I’ve been sitting here thinking about patterns: grief to comfort comfort to recognition recognition to joy joy to loss. Meanwhile flies buzz around my front porch, planes drone by. I go back so far my tail is barely formed of mud-earth, I’m so new I lie in a nest ofv COLORS “Sweet one sing to me and I will recognize your song, (having just sung it myself a few hundred times. Sure took you long enough.)” v “Well, I’m here now.” “Yes Yes” “My heart is as tender as your heart.” “Yes” There’s only one thing to be said HONEY, there’s just a hell of a lot of entertaining ways to say it. Now that you’ve seen my instruments and I’ve seen yours, Let’s Play it’s more fun than fighting ...

The fear that crouched at the roots of his teeth, that muttered under his nails, is spent so that chairs in the corners of the rooms no longer huddle. The anger he crammed in his shoes along with his feet, that cursed in the heels of his hands, has changed, so that lemons in markets glisten, and apples red or green to him as he passes.

It started with letters. He wrote. Dear Grand, What are you up to these days? I’m still trucking around restless as hell,. Got drunk at home guy’s house the other night. Spent the next day throwing up in garbage cans. This is suppose to be fun? Sometimes I think I feel old, then I remember you, and wonder what it’s really like. Are you wise? If so, please pass some along to me. I’m so bored. I doubt if I’ll make forty, so you better hurry. I like writing to you because I can say fuck and shit and you don’t worry about me. How did Mom get to be such a tight ass anyway. Monday I start working at a car wash so I’ll probably be here for awhile, same address. Love, Kid She wrote, Dear Kid, In answer to your question “what am I up to...” Walking, mostly at night I notice lamp posts, the patches of light they make, and my shadow. You might ask “What’s the us of walking at night noticing lamp posts and shadows?” I could sit in the kitchen listening to the refrigerator...

“You know, it was whenI realized that I had to learn a new way, a different way of functioning that I could call that agency. Now, years later, I know I must use my bubble lens and my closed-circuit television if I want to read. When the doctor first pulled those things of of the drawer, I almost died. I was only 16 and couldn’t bear the thought of showing everyone I was different. For me it slowly became a self-discovery. It’s not that I’m so different, only the way I see is different. Now I can do things, I just do them differently.” (Rebeca quoted by Donna L. Emerson, LCSW in “Learning to Adjust to Impaired Vision, page 384)

The birds were eating the apples green that summer, taking only half of each one. Sarah’s children rode their bicycles to visit the horses at the end of the street. They climbed on the fence and held out bunches of grass. Sometimes the horses would trudge over and take the offerings in their huge mouths, sometimes they just stood in the middle of their shade less paddock flicking their tails in the heat. And the children hardly noticed that the Bay was fat and sway-backed, and the Black was old, sweating, and bad tempered. In their imaginations they rode them wildly across fields, scrambled around boulders down into canyons, followed dry creek beds to discover old caves. And at Sarah’s mother’s house, Sarah’s grandmother sat in her chair pretending to sew “something very pretty,” folding and unfolding a piece of Kleenex in her lap. Sometimes she would say, “Now if I could just find the right buttons ...” So Sarah would get out her mother’s button jar and pour some of the buttons in...

You are silver And we share that Small flame, Not images Moonlight “I am tired.” You said “Yes.” I said That’s all

I sit and listen crickets wind sigh birds I am lonely My limbs are sleek and cool My hair curls on my neck My alone runs deep In Earth and out and out There is a nest of sun in the leaves shadows my singing runs deep in earth and out and out a gull cry sliding over the sea.

Was a Day of Children Sea Chant and They beat on the sand Their wood shapes Stone Hand Touched its smooth Laugh-Heartbeat Held it And the shadow of a bird So I brought it here for you.

It begins At the surface of the skin then Deep We sing among each other Love Flowing from you/me In robes of Gold and Diamonds Pools of nectar In which we bathe and are cleansed Until we are Bright and Glistening Among the Candles and Guitar notes And in the darkness When I turn in half sleep To find you Fold yourself around me Yes Beloved Yes

It’s Faces Those Eyes flash your Like sudden Puddle shine So why don’t you Look at me?

Lying in the sun with her eyes closed, Naomi let herself melt layer by layer. Everything seems in wondrous motion, ripple and smooth, folding unfolding, glistening and shifting like water. Then in the middle of it all, there was a helicopter, pounding and growling. Instantly Naomi remembered that she was naked in a green weed field, and wondered if she should put on her clothes. The helicopter was silver with no markings, letters or numbers which she couldn’t make out. It circled, disappearing over the trees at the top of the hill; then reappearing to her right, it passed over very low. The third time it cam grinding down - so close that the sound of it vibrated in her belly —-Naomi realized, with surprise and disgust, that she was being harassed. She scooped up her clothes, made a sweeping obscene hand gesture, and with as much dignity as possible, went into the house. After the brilliance of the field the rooms were cold and dim, filled with coleus and fern, Ira’s odds and ends...

Opening This form is Energy Tenuous Changing shape Full of all to nothing All to nothing The same So, If I confuse my grasses with my hair And my birds are mixed in sun and deep, Who is to say What is

June 10, 1984 AM I’ve decided to write a little every day now, to help savor this time, to help me pay attention to how much or little quality time I’m buying with chemotherapy. Yesterday was wonderful. We (the family) gave Taylor a surprise party to celebrate his finishing 6th grade and to support how well he is doing in school. He was really surprised. We all had horns and squirt guns. We grownups were shooting each other just like a bunch of silly kids. Taylor opened his gifts, and then we all went swimming. It was so delicious to get wet and laze in the sun watching the pool play . . . Mom Barbara drove me to Stanford Medical Center where the oncology staff evaluated my films, slides and records from Kaiser. They completely support the diagnosis and treatment plan. Now we know we are doing all we can. The hard thing about going to Stanford is that the Doctors told me that this kind of cancer isn’t curable and it never goes away. No one ever survived. I can expect 1 - 5 y...

Autumn is not Dying She is a turning of earth inward a girl who flings her flame hair and goes inside. He stands bewildered He was everything he could be to her but she... will forgive you sometime in her sleeping dream of you, forgive you and come back.

Having to have a root canal Feeling guilty when I don’t floss my teeth The gifts of gopher and bird bodies Little leaves on the front porch Tying up bundles of yard clippings and hauling them to the street Cleaning the shower Getting old Finding ancient mold food in the frig

Spending time with my grandchildren Getting to know my children as adults Seeing Taylor and Linda grow up Dick Valenti playing the piano and the two of us singing together Having lunch with Mary and O.J. The chance to play basketball again at the center Christmas afternoon at Frank and Barbara’s Virginia’s chuckle and her lemon pie Listening to KNEW and KNBR (Frank & Mike in the morning (What a dilemma that posed each day!) Learning to tap dance Looking back at Earth from the space shuttle My wonderful mother-in-law Evenings with Elwin and Sherie Carmel Yosemite Mendocino and our yearly visit to the Little River Cafe The mockingbird on our antenna My mother always being there Surprise gifts from Jane Rose’s sense of humor

Who will dance with me Now that I am dying? Eat the last cherries? Listen to the last mockingbird? Cry the last grief? I want to leave this tree as a ripe fruit, Not as a hairless wraith, A nameless creature. Knowing that you will lose me, I still want you to hold me, Knowing that I may lose Everything.

(“Rebeca’s last complete poem was “God Song”. In it she continues singing to us. I hear her singing even now.” Peter Weiler at the Memorial for Rebeca Weiler.) God, The Light in faces. That leap of Spirit seeing The moon between trees, Pines black against the Lighter sky. Inside the house A television hearth of colors Moths tap against the screen, Jane talks on the telephone To her boyfriend. My only prayer is “yes” and “thank you”. If I seem to leave you, Know that I continue singing The Song we are making Together.