When you feel the violence ripping
At the edge of the story ---
Of the image—
Like an old postcard, hand tinted,
That she sent, idyllic
And yet no mention of the grudges,
The dark spears – black ironwork fleur de lis on the railings.
The eyebrows raised,
The handshakes of world leaders,
Equally false.
Silent colours,
Not giving anything away.
- Rita Cummings/2011
SEA FRET AT HOLY ISLAND
I
The Holy Isle was covered
in a sea fret --
As we came from sunny, Northumberland fields
To Lindisfarne Castle in the mist
The damp sand puddled at low tide
like Mont Saint Michel.
The green shelter on the bridge stood
empty, and markings showed
exactly where this very spot would be submerged
by the North Sea rushing in.
II
He said, in Northern tones
–( my mother’s tongue)--
How he remembered the North Sea coast
from childhood –
How a lovely day upon the shore could suddenly turn
cold and damp
from a sea fret –
engulfing the warm sand.
III
This sea fret….endless meeting of water and sky
On our crossing over to the Holy Isle
of saints and martyrs, Cuthbert, Aidan –
Seafarers for Christ.
Their effigies facing the very sea from which they came.
The church’s red granite ruins
headstones effaced by salt and mist –
a pentimento of runes and ancient hieroglyphs.
Through the narrow castle casements I could see
the distant sea and fog
Breathing -- like a wraith creeping in.
IV
Haars in North East Scotland rush in like this:
through empty gates /
The ancient Firths of Forth & Tay enshrouded,
Sounds of fog horns -- distant and invisible.
The mist is silent, muffled
The familiar horizon disappears from view –
Travelers lose their bearings,
And ships drift ,
languorous in time.
.
V
Returning home again –
Across this narrow isthmus,
Wooden stakes rise like a giant’s causeway from the rippling sand.
We are driving through an invisible sea—
Traveling through the home of watery ghosts…
entangled
in this shiny, bulbous kelp upon an imaginary sea floor
They are slowly creeping in…
Fluttering
in our ears.
VI
In this sea-fret, I am untongued--
No longer lost,
unwinged –
A sea-bell clanging
mouths the coming of high tide—
And my return from something rich and strange
Into a kind of grace ---
Into the requiem of the sea.
The endless, relentless chants of these
tides are taking me
home --
And I can hear my voice again.
© Rita Cummings 2008
Santa Barbara--
high on the Riviera,
I am surrounded by fragrance;
the garden is intense, disordered;
birds of paradise
violet and orange flames,
the Santa Ynez mountains
hazy in the distance.
The day is shimmering with
the purple jacaranda,
organge bougainvillea,
the blue and white of the harbour,
abalone boats and idle sailors on the dock,
discussing fishing laws and propositions
that measure out the boundaries of their lives;
a parasailor is pulled out to sea --
the yellow chute hovering in the distance.
Suddenly, I am in a different landscape--
the cobalt blue of the Spanish tile in the plaza,
the colours of Matisse surround me;
my emotions are becoming like the green line
that runs down the face
of the painter's wife.
- RC/1996
Twin
I
The She:
How she sulks this twin
Her hair matted, dull—
Her thin legs twisted.
She will not cooperate,
She is not to be trusted—
This failing other.
She is prone to cut and chop
At a whim.
How she bleeds – when will it end?
Her fingertips are dark morels,
Rooted in the dark, loamy soil of the forest floor.
They are mysterious shapes, aren’t they?
I cannot touch her.
II
The Other:
The other is radiant—how she dips and swells—
Elusive fire at her core—
Welling.
She holds an unknown nomenclature—
Eternal words I can only guess at,
Stragglers---they will not come easy or whole.
A simulacrum of the other, her hair is long and fibrous—
She is a being of light,
Her hands are ponds into which I gaze.
III
She is biting into a strawberry—freshly picked
And seeing the soft, white flesh puckered, tart
Holding itself
Full of possibilities.
The tiny seeds glistening—
Like looking at someone in the mirror
And not knowing what she would become.
- RC
With eyes at the back of our heads
we see a mountain
not obstructed with woods but laced
here and there with feathery groves.
The doors before us a facade
that perhaps has no house in back of it
are too narrow, and one is set high
with no doorsill. The architect sees
the imperfect proposition and
turns eagerly to the knitter.
Set it to rights!
The knitter begins to knit.
For we want
to enter the house, if there is a house,
to pass through the doors at least
into whatever lies beyond them,
we want to enter the arms
of the knitted garment. As one
is re-formed, so the other,
in proportion.
When the doors widen
when the sleeves admit us
the way to the mountain will clear,
the mountain we see with
eyes at the back of our heads, mountain
green, mountain
cut of limestone, echoing
with hidden rivers, mountain
of short grass and subtle shadows.
I want to give you
something I've made
some words on a page --- as if
to say, 'Here are some blue beads?'
Or, 'Here's a bright read leaf I found on
the sidewalk' (because
to find is to choose, and choice
is made). But it's difficult
so far I've found
nothing but the wish to give. Or
copies of old words? Cheap
and cruel; also senseless:
Take
this instead, perhaps -- a half-
promise: If
I ever write
a poem of a certain temper.
