Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

Perhaps this anger has a gem hidden in it.  Here is to the ancestors:  I hear you, beloved ones!

Anger sifts onto me
from the ancestors;
into me, like a blessing.

Mom’s sparked over through holes she thought she had buried, by lust.
Grandma’s sparked, too, her eyes filled with tears and dust.

Those who went before are buried in unmarked graves:
Some died with the anger burning – seared hearts.
Some cried themselves to sleep and never woke up.
Some drank from the bottle of vodka forever (still…).

Anger churned: they tried to shake it out, or wash it out over steaming suds.
Some had stiff faces, took the beatings, never cried:
died with it, churning, burning, yearning for salvation.

Their yearning longs to make the foe a friend.
-meb/05/2017

come to life, lit by an inner flame,
young leaves allow the shine to pass through,
golden-green,
on the coal-black branch.
I awaken, too.

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” Rainer Marie Rilke

photo, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2017

Sometimes I get anxious because I will die with the poetry in me. I know it’s there. I think the “One Who Wants it Perfect” gets her way.
She blocks the light in the doorway, her hands on her hips, moist – she’s rubbed them on her damp apron. She looks at me: “you’ll never get it right,” she says. Having done her work, she turns and walks away, one thick leg ahead of the other. I hear her call from the kitchen: “Come and clean the sink!” she says, loudly. “I hear you!,” I should say, loud enough for her to hear (I never said it to Mom, but I should have, grunted, at least).

I trudge off to the kitchen, join her in the narrow space, where she rattles everything she touches and moves her hefty body in my way, every time. Her legs bump against me, as if I need a reminder of her girth, the space she takes. I sullenly do the work – fast! “Get me out of here!” I think. Then, there are more mugs in the sink and I see the dust on the shelf under the window, right at eye level. “That needs cleaning, too,” I think, and wipe it down. I arrange bright things on the shelf, beauty, for a moment.

I called you Holy when you stared into the room. Your bushy tail unrolled behind you and your small, dark eyes darted as you watched me through the glass. You’re a scrapper: when I moved, you climbed up the wall and onto the roof next door, where you surveyed your land. I am Holy, too: I named you, and I saw my own reflection in the glass.
–Mary Elyn Bahlert, 2/12/2017