The Life of Poetry
--from Muriel Rukeyser (1949)


first its form— a function of time
like the slow growth of trees,
a record of those years which saw
the rings being made— rippled
wooden stories depict the wetness 
or dryness of the ages 
before there was writing, before charts 
were kept— the form held in lines 
and words

which appeared slowly, the poem
moving through its sounds
the wavelengths of sounds
like those tree rings measured
through the heart beats and breath
of deer grazing beneath them

there is tension and attraction
between the meanings transferred
among people when a poem 
is given and taken, a whole life
like a vast tree swaying in the wind.





Praying at the Coffee Shop


They prayed
earnestly
in Chinese
the coffee growing
colder
people watching
gardeners mowing
out the windows
phone conversations
meetings at the next table
still they prayed
while others stared
aloud
firmly
children milled
underfoot
a muffin consumed
but they remained
heads down
hands clasped
murmuring
they are praying
cold coffee
stale sweet rolls
morning has begun
righteously
we feel much better
now I'm sure
it's a free country





Easter Hats


before Easter at Woolworth's, 
the only department store in town
I used to find the Easter hats
in bright pastel straw with paper
flower bouquets, with broad brims
for the desert sun, sitting
on their foam skull molds

I always wanted one but as the only
(non-practicing) Jews
we didn't celebrate, so my little
friend brought me a basket of candy
in sympathy, in her new pink hat

my mother allowed me to eat
the candy but never to buy a new
yellow or peach straw bonnet
with frilly green flowers
and a ribbon tie under the chin
or shiny patent loafers, frilled socks 
to wear with a white dress--

Easter wasn't our holiday
instead we drove out to a rare
stream, played in thorny bushes
in jeans without finery
Easter hats a distant image
like a Madonna cradling
her dead son on a similar
rocky outcrop in a faraway land.