Poetryzine Magazine presents the selected poems by the American poetess Carol Hamilton
The Other Side
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still
John Fletcher (1597-1625)
Magical and dark the La Paz observatory,
and carefully we walked the gardens
to visit the holy man in a cellar … cave-like …
to be mystified by his fortunetelling
with the turnings of cocoa leaves, silver, green.
The sky in that deep dark
was strange except for Magellenic Clouds
and Orion seen cartwheeled upside down
to the north. We stepped, cautious,
in a scant light of torch lanterns along the path,
the whole sky an enigma. The Aymarans,
the Quechua, surely they named that sky,
but we, Western science come late,
did not ask, so when we ran out of gods …
we named the clusters for equipment …
Microscopium, Telescopium, Horologium,
assigned our Western nomenclature.
That is what we do. Even come
distance , come darkness,
come a different slant of night,
we cannot, like Peter Pan,
loose ourselves from our shadows,
the riddles we have yet to catalog,
the many secrets we likely will never
notice nor find a way to consign to paper.
When I Could Walk in the Park
Once I remembered childhood hopscotch
and backbends and my hands, tentative, aloft
to gather the rhythms of a whirling rope
before daring to dash in, jump to the beat
of the chants we all knew, our early poetry.
Straight-backed, head-lifted forward motion
long past now, I recall my daily park walks
through the thick woods, the tree trunks' dark bark
swallowing light all about me. I would note the straggles
of summer's vines, dead, left to dangle from chain link wires
of golf course fencing. Now driving past the park,
or even here in my chair, I think of the light-sucking
woods, the memorized poems I chanted to myself,
the dry gullies, the tree roots, places where I must wobble
and balance every time, be careful not to fall.
Those moments dangle all along my chain-linked memories,
more luxuriant, more comely than those dried remnants left
tattered on fencing or even the rampant greens of living vines.
Flitter
I watch the summer afternoon
from a shady patch,
eyes scanning the pink open-to-heaven faces
of the naked lady lilies in full bloom,
their yearning throats an invitation
to every kind of insect.
Above them colors dance and dive
–a kaleidoscope which turns itself.
Sharing the Past
We write of Crisco
and catsup
from our childhoods so distant
in time and geography
both then and now ---
your Jewish roots
and my Protestant prairie past
You note the foods
that still turn you nauseous
and I of those I refused
to touch in their bottles
covered with dewy slickness
to pass at table to the brother
we each had one of
You do not wish me
to even write the words
mayonnaise or oatmeal
with still-alive disgust
from years when we both dreamed
old-world nightmares
and how our mothers then
despite such distinct menus
each cooked with Crisco
(a grease we both avoid today)
to turn our childhood fare
to a perfect pitch of crispness
Masks
Maybe they disappear in sleep,
slip off as facial muscles relax
and dreams begin to ramble,
mix-it-up. Waking, one or another
takes over, shifts with the task at hand,
and now and then, we don one
of our own choosing. We navigate the streets,
the meetings, even the loved ones' looks.
We read each face we meet beginning with
the very first locking in of our newly
born gaze with that of our mothers' eyes,
perhaps the only pure moment
we will ever know.
Bread and Salt
Just as I read of these symbols
of hospitality in old Russia, I partake
of these very elemental gifts.
But now for two weeks my home
is shut off as we wait in quarantine.
In their old days, all custom
was lost to war, and ours?
All war brews from discontent,
and we leave it steeping
over gas flames. Old Russia had
its blind by habit, too.
I eat alone and praise how
goodness touches my tongue
A Distant Dawn Come Home
We all have horrid times I know.
I found his blood upon the windowpane
and gathered panic from the field
and learned they could not reap their grain.
The dawn in east sang hope again.
They wakened to damp morning chill,
And while I moved the switch for warmth
their chldren's bowls were empty still.
This hour is silent in my home
while others' morning wakes to blasts.
Someone's fate is now to roam,
a pilgrim's path to feast on fasts.
There is a shadow on my wall
that travels as the hours pass.
There is no peace in any home
while others sink in hate's morass.
*Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 19 books and chapbooks: children's novels, legends and poetry. She has been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.
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