On the snack counter, the cross country train,

    a lucite aquarium

houses guppies the size of thumbnail parings

    darting among seeweed stalks

which wave when I lift the box

    eye level, silver fins

fanning over a brown snail who walks his mouth

    along a carpet of rainbow stones.

I wonder if fish can sense wet heat

    moving eastbound

when Draco finds the height of its arc;

    when a mourning cloak butterfly

drags crèpe in the mottled hem of her wings

    across my morning shadow

although autumn is months ahead,

    your funeral months behind--

    

while my friends deny me black:

    weren't married

never lived under the same roof;

    can't claim a widow's portion--

seering my skin. Not holy suttee--

    Remember icqgz--fish as icon

believers hiding in caves no star

    can enter--

death, then life--would forbid me that--

    not widow! Not obliged!

not Jeanne d'Arc's virginal love's last act

    enrafted to wood

to God by fire; just a brass censer

    clouds of insense

balance the scales of memory.

    Alpha. Omega.

 

Flame and ashes. Who is it

    fills me roundabout?

Hooded crows scratch dry leaves

    for berrys, acorns, pinecones, whatever

promises to root in a nameless dream-time.

    My bloodless vision: at your desk,

your face mirrored in double espresso,

    lemon twist,

you see the problem of carving your space

    in the heartland

between cold and hot, north and south,

    grey bluffs and cornfields

without loosing whatever Gaelic your mouth

    can shape by twilight.

By your window where your telescope

    spots alewifes fishing
    

beneath lake's tide like sky going nova.

    Inside a calkskin medicine pouch

from my mother's Cherokee past

    adorned with your silve Celtic knot--

I carry ancient magic--

    stones from where the earth holds you.

Broad-winged hawks perch on fence posts

    gnarling the tracks--grey beasts

of hawks specked black, grey wings

    waiting in fog to rise in warm hunger.

Another rocks on his axis

    like a piper cub, silent

above runway lights, surrounding night

    comforting, strange,

the neon city welcoming while mist

    curls down rows of corn--
    

blurring locusts and sweetgum;

    burls turn yellow and brown;

shapeshifters dance as wind

    wraps their dark mantles

over knotted roots.

    Seed-time.

When stars loose their footing

    over a field of milkweed pods,

a blaze of sumac staving off

    the last footholds of fog.

Sunflowers, cattails

    crumble among goldenrods

blending like potpourri

    in your mother's crystal jar:

a keen of living aromas.
 

Is that why I trust this train

    to thread its way along the Missouri

back to Chicago, where on my knees

    in the fullest of spirit, I kiss
    

the sacred green of your grave?

 
 Copyright © Martha Modena Vertreace, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.