The Clinging of Chimes
For S.L.
In Mystic, Connecticut time
is more merciful, less specific.
It follows days and weeks spent
idle, noticing changes in the weather,
hoping the shift of heat wave to snow
or lilacs to roses will remind you of me,
There is no pained weather here,
only pale water and rowboats of fog.
Across the bay, cathedral chimes
from the little church spring through
pretty and blend with the moist river air,
each lingering into the next,
reminding me for a moment
of Tennessee Williams:
"cathedral bells.
the only clinging thing
in the Quarter."
There is a feeling of staying
in such fleeting notes.
I remember our love the way
one remembers autumn in greyer seasons,
embracing the brevity of leaves,
crisp pink cheeks and trees
in our hair, let down.
Rising in the indigo paint and sky
baby blue lines frame the horizon.
Tender and pristine, the white of the steeple
behind fishing boats and antique shops,
seagulls crying and circling out,
dusk setting in like love.
Petals of milk and honey fall,
flow from white blossoms
like breath and glitter
scattered buoyant on the water,
leaving behind a fairy trail
spilling over of love,
this autumnal season,
this clinging of chimes.
Between Lands
For J.M.
In the time just before the end of our love
The house had grown sea legs perched at the dock
And was considering leaving Europe behind.
It rattled and shook as I walked the kitchen in
slippers
And the pots and pans and even the cupboards were
nervous,
I swear that they shifted and huddled together.
Below this house too the cellar-a gallows
Where the rowers prepared to slit silver rivers rising
Sounds of oars lifting upstairs to the living room
Where books, lamps, photographs drifted errily
And our waterlogged couches
Dripped and heaved like coral and horror
In the attic too there was pacing and whistling
Wind sounding through some cracks in the corners
Posts and beams and crickety boards joined in
Like sails that snapped and billowed helpless
And my cat seemed worried as he whined at the window,
A creature of habit sensing what was to come.
The bed in our room felt much like a raft,
My blankets and nightgown like shrouds of the sea
And my body in them too weary to flag you down
Despite the rush of current cleansing my bones.
It was only that morning when the ground
Beside my bed was not there,
The hall beyond our bedroom door
Filled with creatures of the sea
That I woke you to urge you
and do something about it
Only to find you dreaming America.
Naming the Flowers
Driving to work this morning
the teacher saw a girl, a student
posing prettily over a lilac bush
in someone's yard, and in her hand,
a plump cone bending toward her lips.
Tossed at her feet, a schoolbag,
for the moment, forgotten.
The teacher felt the familiar
morning rush from hazelnut coffee
with sugar enough
to sweeten the lips long after,
and the right song playing on the radio,
sunlight cast into the window
like spotlights, a new awareness--
she is in love and soon,
he might send flowers.
She whispered to herself "lilac"
pronouncing it two different ways,
savoring the name on her tongue.
In the school parking lot
she imagined the girl, lingering
like a May morning, tearing the flower
from its branch. Eventually,
she would come across the street
to the school door, where minutes earlier
the teacher had walked, considering
time passed since she was fifteen.
It is here teacher and student
will spend the day, in different corridors.
Woman teaching little girls like her
with elbows on their desks, pretending to listen.
Today though, the distance between them
is smaller. After all, they will both
dream of flowered cones and their tiny
scented stars that might (if flowers
had sounds) echo and shimmer
like windchimes in spring,
and of boys
who whisper their names
the way poets relish
the names of flowers.
J.Prusky
13 Exeter Street
Easthampton, MA 01027
(413)527-6668
joanprusky@yahoo.com
Joan Prusky grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and in Seoul, Korea. She has a B.A. from Smith College and a M.A.T. from Smith College, is currently a high school Social Studies teacher in Windsor, CT, and lives in Easthampton, MA.
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