December 2017
Mary McCarthy
mmccarthy161@gmail.com
mmccarthy161@gmail.com
I have been a teacher and a Registered Nurse, and always a writer and artist. Recently moved from Pennsylvania to Florida, where I’m learning to enjoy the abundant wildlife, frequent spectacular thunderstorms and sunsets, and to avoid heat exhaustion. Continuing to appreciate the lively communities of writers and artists made possible by the internet and its gifts of connection and inspiration.
Author's Note: At the time these were written I was in my twenties, a time that seems impossibly distant now. It felt both like everything was before me and conversely, that no real future was possible. These poems came out of a mix of excitement and anticipation, hope and despair, and the tendency to drama that seems so prevalent in youth. I can see in them my love of words and their sounds, and the attempt to see the ordinary in startling and unusual ways. I enjoyed looking back on these, and hope the V/V community will find them interesting.
Poppies
These flowers are a fever
unhinging the neat geometry
of our conversation
they are too red too warm
they melt the morning
disturb the careful angles
of the furniture
jangle on our walls
like loud clowns
It is late
they die with too bright a cry
fall too slow from time
and burn and burn
still
Everything is ashes
we sweep them up
careful not to touch them
with already blistered hands
Nana
Wall-surrounded
our rooms were wells
catch-alls for falls of light
Down drifting they slipped through
to layer and settle
on the hands that clucked
between thread and shuttle
when her treadle timed humming
drowsed to the foot’s beat
and spin of the bobbin
Like the summer that crept down
between the walls
and caught its wings there in corners
she slipped into quiet
and was caught
falling through the years
Now she’s centered
in a neat space
stored for the long winter
in a narrow cellar room
Her hands are pinned and still
her light distilled
and sealed away
Madonna Song
I will sit in the sun and grow my hair
let it grow on at great length
until it fills the air
Looking nothing human
nothing will fear me
birds will nest in it
spiders weave webs
among its threads
moths will sleep themselves
to transformation
leaves will drift here to die
seeds will lose their way
and rest where they cannot root
I will be patient as stone
until wild men come
to beat war dances
on my bones
These flowers are a fever
unhinging the neat geometry
of our conversation
they are too red too warm
they melt the morning
disturb the careful angles
of the furniture
jangle on our walls
like loud clowns
It is late
they die with too bright a cry
fall too slow from time
and burn and burn
still
Everything is ashes
we sweep them up
careful not to touch them
with already blistered hands
Nana
Wall-surrounded
our rooms were wells
catch-alls for falls of light
Down drifting they slipped through
to layer and settle
on the hands that clucked
between thread and shuttle
when her treadle timed humming
drowsed to the foot’s beat
and spin of the bobbin
Like the summer that crept down
between the walls
and caught its wings there in corners
she slipped into quiet
and was caught
falling through the years
Now she’s centered
in a neat space
stored for the long winter
in a narrow cellar room
Her hands are pinned and still
her light distilled
and sealed away
Madonna Song
I will sit in the sun and grow my hair
let it grow on at great length
until it fills the air
Looking nothing human
nothing will fear me
birds will nest in it
spiders weave webs
among its threads
moths will sleep themselves
to transformation
leaves will drift here to die
seeds will lose their way
and rest where they cannot root
I will be patient as stone
until wild men come
to beat war dances
on my bones
© 2017 Mary McCarthy
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF