T hree Ages of Women poems
Martin Willitts Jr.
de e r bro ok e di t ions
published by Deerbrook Editions P.O. Box 542 Cumberland, ME 04021 207.829.5038 www.deerbrookeditions.com www.issuu.com/deerbrookeditions f i r s t e di t ion © 2017 by Martin Willitts Jr. All right reserved ISBN: 978-0-9991062-1-1 Book design by Jeffrey Haste Cover art: T he Italian by Edouard Manet, 1860
Table of Contents
I. Youth: Love Sudden Chill 11 Jasmine 13 T he Bridal Path 14 Afternoon Tea 15 Young Girl Combing Her Hair 16 After the Fair 17 Mending More than Socks 18 Afternoon Nap 19 1753 – Washington Crossing the Allegheny 20 On the Terrace 22 Salvation 23 Tuning the Blue Guitar of Blindness 25 Four Sirens 26 II. Georgia O’Keeffe Georgia O’Keeffe Poems 29 Maple and Cedar, Lake George 31 O’Keeffe Paints the Desert 34 From the Lake 35 Black Hollyhocks with Blue Larkspur 36 Summer Days 37 Ram’s Head, White Hollyhock Hills 38 Pelvis IV 39 Horse’s Skull with White Rose 40 Fragment of the Ranchos de Taos Church 41 T he Lawrence Tree 42 III. Middle Age: Anger Broken Eggs T he Justified Anger T he Letter Personal Space Is Literary Space
45 46 47 48
Carlos Casagemas’ Pistol and the Beginning of the Blue Period 51 Picasso’s Blue Paint 52 If Freud Had Seen Picasso’s Blue Period 53 Washing Herself of Sadness 54 Bruised 56 Corner of the Room 57 IV. T he Helga Pictures Andrew Wyeth 61 Helga Testorf 63 Braids 65 Loden Coat (Walking in Her Cape Coat) 66 Day Dream 67 Helga 'Braids' (detail) 68 Sheepskin 69 Page Boy (detail) 70 Farm Road 71 Letting Her Hair Down 72 Weatherside 73 Helga Suite 74 V. Old Age: Death How Decisions Are Made 79 Nighthawks 80 Butterfly Memories 82 One Day I Found a Lump in My Breasts 84 T hree Ages of the Woman and the Death 85 Ile Aux Fleurs 88 Beyond Reach 89 T he Gate 91 T he Garden of Earthly Delights 92
Acknowledgments 95
I Youth: Love
Sudden Chill
From “Gloucester Farm”, by Winslow Homer, 1874
She gave him a ladle of fire-cold spring-water. He drank loudly and forgot to thank her. Afterward, water tasted like love ignored. T he hoeing was hot, sweaty work. So he drank until his head was numb. He did not notice the icy-intense stare of a woman ignored too often. She did not understand his silence. When a farmer stops working, nothing gets done. He did not have time. T he cows were lowing. For her, love would be noisy butterflies, or the moon, half-awake, in the rafters. It was the fence knocked down by hunters. It was a paper cutout opening into two hearts. It meant what it meant. If she could explain it, it would ruin the meaning. For him, tomorrow meant more of the same. He would get up before the rooster. Go out; milk the cows dry as wheat. T hrash the corn. Work until his body was a split-rail fence. Days were numbing. T he same everyday-ness. He would miss how quickly she would flow, moods like cloud-cover, her eyes blinking, wide-eyed, and hoping. He was not cut out for anything else except haying. She was a frantic heartbeat, and he was a slow, assured, measured one. T hings mean what they mean. One day, she was gone. 11
Chances move quickly and are gone, just as fast. Like a papercut. Sometimes they just move at their own pace.
12
Jasmine
For, “Bahram Gur in the Turquoise Pavilion,” by Saikh-zada
He proposed between the zither music and the hand-drum on her knee beneath the mosaic tent. He served green tea using words of poetry near the jasmines so she would know love is the turning of delicate zither strings and the ocean beats with a small drum. He closed the flaps of the world to be alone together like all lovers should. She saw herself in the mirror of his jade eyes and knew she was the center of his universe, sweet and sour as fresh limes. All he had to do was clap his hands and all of this would vanish. T he sky would fold as a tent. T he music and poetry would become their blanket. Other women would be as forgotten as the stars. When he proposed, there were finger cymbals in the sky.
13
T he Bridle Path
From the painting by Winslow Homer, 1868
She rides sidesaddle to her wedding over the dangerous rocky trails down into the valley to the Presbyterian church knowing it is there where she cannot see, hearing the hooves behind here as she shifts as the horse descends unevenly. Her calico bonnet shades her from the harsh sun so blinding, the sky is not blue, but a dying glare. She cannot help wonder if her husband will be this harsh, or tame as the dappled grey, or ragged as uneven slabs that are steps down into the unknown, into a trust tight as reins.
14
Afternoon Tea
From the painting by Eva Gonzalès, 1875
T he day is losing its sharp focus. I wait for no one—like it is important. I slump awkwardly listening to the conversation that is not there. If the days pass any slower, they might pass me by. T here is no sound in the distance or nearby. T here is little to do while waiting. I sharpen the awkwardness into the silence present in the conversations I would have if there was someone to say, how was your day? I would say, “T he same as always.” How slowly days are when not much is happening. Silence would pass between us like tea cups. We would focus on each other like it was important. Awkwardness would slump into the distance. If the days passed like cakes, we would nibble slowly. You would sit like a sound waiting to happen. You would say, “How was your day?” I would bright up like conversational roses. I would tell you the slow details of nothingness which you would sip slowly like tea. We would serve each other what was left of the day. T here would be no awkward feelings about silence or focused light getting lost in the details.
15
Young Girl Combing Her Hair
From the painting by Renoir, 1894
She would brush light out of her hair. How could he not watch this? Her hair was waterfalls of flame. How could he not want to touch this? She sighed when he caressed her hair. How could he not want to smell this? Someday, she would outgrow this attention, and she would brush silence. He would watch less and less with less attention until he wanted nothing to do with it. Light will burn out, hair will sigh, but the sounds of water will continue without them.
16
After the Fair
From the painting by Amado Pena, date unknown
T here is something about a black pot made by my brown hands baked also in the same sun that turned my skin this color of desert mountains in Nevada. T here is something about my poncho I made in my own loom, as I watched the sun disappear into the desert, as its footsteps dissolving under changing sand like the temperament of a husband if the cornmeal is not turned into tortillas. T he poncho has threads of my life, sewn climbing ladders into the pueblo, like I was a spider on a web into the sky T here is something about the desert: it knows my name and my heart is a cactus flower; it offers lonely whiteness to the disrespectful; it bakes water inside the pot of my body. I am a part of the desert, the sand, the clear stars like eyes watching and protecting, much like a coyote’s eyes, much like my husband’s as he watches me forming the clay into blackness. He is curious and pretending not to care, but at night, when he folds himself next to me like a poncho, and his arms are the branches of the mesquite, he murmurs my name in his lone tone like a coyote. It is then I know the pot does not have to sell at the fair; sometimes it is better to have him watch me make it. T here is something about the pot as he stares. 17
Mending More T han Socks
From Archibald J. Motley’s painting, 1924
She has mended a generation of socks. She is old as the waxed fruit in the bowl. Her hands are furrowed as years in the fields. T here were times when she felt that she would never be done. She would find herself repairing the hole in the dark. She would work in her dreams, always picking threads of cotton. I would hear a soft snore, finding her in her chair, the socks on her lap like sad tired children. I would try not to disturb her, pulling a blanket up. She would look at me with woolen eyes, “What do think you are doing? I am not done.” When she was in a casket like a knitting basket, I expected her to scold me for coming home late, for forgetting my skin was nightshades, for gambling and consulting with shameful women, for wearing toes through my socks since I never seem to care how much it cost to get new ones. When I saw her in the coffin with a darning needle in her hand, I burst into a carnal cry for the years spent wasted. One of her grandchildren tugged me on the cuff, “are you the one she loved as much as sewing?” I knew then a generation is held together by threads.
18
Afternoon Nap
From “Girl Asleep,” by Johannes Vermeer, 1657
T he days get longer this time of the year. No work gets done, and the list grows. Life is illegible handwriting. T he world naps with clenched lips. It is so quiet I forget she is there. Her head is nudging down her palm to the light resting on the air. If it gets anymore silent, we will hear light. We will hear the sigh from the pears.
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