July 2017
These poems address summer memories from my youth. The first is about my encounters with the wilderness just outside town. As a girl I felt like I could be wild and close to nature, but saw that the world expected something quite different from grown women. The encounter on the beach happened the summer before my senior year in high school. It was a magical exchange whereby two strangers found a bond in communicating, although with difficulty, about their homes and lives. Both poems appear in my chapbook, Staring Through My Eyes.
Rope Climb
sun-filtered woods with their hard packed trails
meander their steep slope to the river
where an arched railroad bridge casts sun-wrought shade
from hand hewn stones of hazy men
trains sear civilization’s untamed wound
tied to rails they sway rough clank through named towns
found the boy in me, the one I waited to love
I hurtle past accusation as Elvis on the radio
pleads plaintive truth of suspicious minds like this
rasp of burn hazel and how the sharp smell of weeds
permeates the breath of July’s cicada whir
straight down the spine of afternoon
I prefer the uncaring face of this river to that
of the universe with its galaxies
in the water’s particulate waste I taste the metal
of my blood as I steel myself against its forward press
my privacy cradled and cool caressed
the river’s dark indifference saturates my need
today I fly across a slumped summer waterfall
to grab tight this spent rope, limpid-hung expectant
from the stone bridge, shoulderer of trains that
halt my breath and shudder my thoughts
I muscle my way up the thick twist of hemp
entranced by its endless double twine of self-embrace
hand over hand the rope now taut above me
rough scrapes my thighs to the holding clasp of feet
beneath the strain of bone and tendon
its frayed end swings the heavy spin of infinity
tonight I will join the women who lean
back into folding chairs and intertwine their
stories on the front stoops of houses fused
together with interlocking bricks
frosted lips will form words while legs cross one
over the other with the absentminded turn of ankle
to guide the dangle of pink polished toes
as they trace the slow arc of doubt
Vietnamese Boy Meets Pennsylvania Girl on Jersey Beach, 1978
He remembers a languid land
terraced grasses that sway
‘round ancestor encrusted grounds
shrines gleam
in moonglow mango groves
seasons stream pathways
of birdsong dawn
down mother’s tender tread
shoulders rise and fall
as his quavering voice
glides language
a layering of notes
as cascading from an instrument
strung with a single metal string
shadows of quiet laughter
as he struggles for me to see
in English
and I begin to grasp
just how big
“beautiful” can be
in a distant slender home
I speak to him of science club
my grandfather
we walk for hours
from evening into full dark
I always thought
I would see him again
on Jersey tidal backwater beach
brachish water laps toes
withholds its moonbeam trace
© 2017 Sylvia Cavanaugh
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