RRWG reading at Garbo’s with Meridel LeSeuer & Maureen Hurley

A SONG OF SORROW

    for Meriden Le Seuer

The mindful trust of this body is held between the spaces of the unseeing eye, left behind on the prairie where Crazy Horse last stood. Yonder, prairie flowers grow naked on the graves of those whose blood nourished the soil 100 years after the last buffalo robe rotted into dust. The circling sparrowhawks encompass the lost souls of those who died in anger, hatred, or in fear. This is a song of sorrow for those who walk alone.

7/13/1980
Port Townsend, WA

POEM FOR RUSTY NORTH'S HANDS

POEM FOR RUSTY NORTH'S HANDS

With its absent-minded stroke
upon the coarse woven skirt,
the knowing touch of an
arthritic hand, too old
for a middle-aged woman

The surety of her deft dressmaker's touch
reminds me of my grandmother's hands,
who made all my school clothes,
but this woman's other hand is missing

& I sense the presence of her twin limb
occupying space, still capable of feeling,
never aging, like the amputated limbs
of children.

As if in greeting and supplication,
her absent hand caresses this room
with the comfort and care of a hand
that lips of children dutifully brush.

Her daughters smooth their dresses
carefully over their thin knees.
I too remember how cruel the kids at school were
on the subject of home-made dresses.

7/11/1980
Port Townsend, WA
The Child in the Bell, CPITS Statewide Anthology, 1981-82