[Realpoetik] Sharon Dolin

[RealPoetik Magazine]

With Roses (6:30 a.m.)


I'm empty. Quench me with song.
I'm guarded. Open me as the undine.
I'm sleepy. Awaken me to strum.
I'm clipped and shorn of night. With each note brighten me.

Let the eight-stringed harp hallow Your name.
I'm thirsty with praise. Let this golden net manna me in Your Majesty.

The leaves of the sycamore wave their shade through my window
      in my underwater sun they dapple my page.
Through me the voice of the sparrow.
Through my song the dying heave of the hooked bluefish
      its ribboned gills—the color of bleeding roses.
In its last gasps in the punishing air—so like its birth—it praises You.

What hook have You placed in my lip?

I seek You in the syllable sighs of the sycamore that sings Seek more.
I hear You in the mimosa that murmurs My Moses.
I have sought Your face in the faces of strangers who jostle me at the
market.
I have glimpsed You in my son's squint and in my husband's ironic grin.
I have sought You in the late-blooming rose of Sharon.
I have found You in the spider that makes its web in my kitchen corner.
I have seen You in the inchworm caught in its web and in the one scaling my
arm.

O the world is filled with those who bait the hook and those who are caught
      and You alone know which one we will become
      and when You will catch us up in Your celestial net.

And all at the moment of birth and at the moment of bloom
      and still all at the scissored instant of death

When the good are trampled upon
      and it is difficult to muster my faith into song

When I waver I pray
      You will set me on the highest rock
For even my doubt is holy and drum-taps Your praise.



Green Laddered  Thanksgiving (11 a.m.)


At forest-green                 at rungs as trees

      at shore-rim            of shadow-green

(on one high step        on mixing bowl » dish towel

               pegged

     to archway)               to Japanese maple » ample

       leaves climbing               I am climbing

           to read     Nature's book in this nook

      in this 21st century kitchen light » at chin height

        And all I can do is give thanks » thanks

         for the bull frog                     by my door

  give thanks                      for the cicada's » dada

    its persistent IS         for these limbs » that limn

that I can still swim » on a whim

      in the green pond exceeding     thanks » for seeding me »

       ceding me Samuel                   my son

                whose name means You heard

             prophet  anointer of kings » rejoicer in all things

     who believes in You

       * (How else could the whole world

              have been created)*

More thanks for                       Sono (know who is)

   the red Griffon »                  fond I am fond of

       his beard-face to look       upon is to laugh » bark against bark

   whose patience          is devotion » won't shun

                 risks              drowning              swimming out
to me


Abundant gratitude in every latitude

for my marry »      my helpmate

(not made like me)      in his stoic calm

as the morning page         of the pond » (my im » ponderable)


                 Thank You for fashioning me as I am

a woman (no woe-man—                    not wombed man)

morning-slow (mourning, low)            who kneels »

                 making patterns                quickening with words »

                                   (consorts with orts)

                           May all these lines praise You

                              rays                     raise You

                               thanks                  give

                                   for each day's          eleventh hour
return

                                          (my sojourn)

                            the gathering        bright haze.



Blackberry City and Sundial Talk (4 p.m.): Time


takes all but memories  in the end
       (takes time) takes even those

of our tailboned ancestors       this
the purplest late-fall sun      of my lover's ways (of my own)

of the buildings torn down to make way  of those ghosting my dreams
of the bridges packed with smeared people walking away

of other bridge walks to hear
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"               the ceremony

of marriage     even of the brightest
blood birth at the sunset hour of 4:59

when I pushed and strained
forth a child           of his immediate gaze

and suckle      of stinging milk-breast urge    its taste
of my blackberry blood

of that first Brooklyn day outside after
many child-feverish days             of racing

down the exhilarating alleyway
into the spangled street        of sweating in the City of

Fountains (of drinking at one           dipping
my feet in another)             of each ecstatic

swim            when I once fell in      got snow up my nose
of the first time I picked blackberries

in Ithaca and bit in    of lavender smell           of the last time
I kissed his sleepy face

or held her grasp:      Is *forgetting*
the soul dying          finally with the body?

O Blessed One
                may it never be so.


Sharon Dolin is the author of three books of poems: Realm of the
Possible (Four Way Books, 2004), Serious Pink (Marsh Hawk Press,
2003), and Heart Work (The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995), as well as five
poetry chapbooks. Her latest book, Burn and Dodge, is the winner of
the Donald Hall Prize in Poetry and forthcoming from the University of
Pittsburgh Press. Dolin is Poet-in-Residence at Eugene Lang College,
The New School for Liberal Arts. She directs The Center for Book Arts
Annual Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Competition and is a Curator for
their Broadsides Reading Series, and teaches at the 92 Street Y in NYC.


~

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