SATURDAY'S POEM

SEA'D SAGA
by suzanne nixon

I.

in this lifetime
I have lived not by the sea
yet the sea has lived in me
in my head
aslosh and tide driven
and shriven
in the bone white chalice
of my skullduggery

beginnings.
I am proficient at beginnings
every inhalation from that first one
an instance of another inception

every flutter of the valves
within my heart
until the flutter stops
and soul departs

every cascade
up and down
and back and forth
from hemispheres
to fingertips
and toes
from and to my eyes
my nose
from throat to ears
in sounds heard and composed

impulse and current flows
upon the spinal river
the leap and seepage
from node to node
moves my limbs
informs my tongue
gives voice to thought
puts substance to dream

midway on the Shattemuc
the river that flows both ways
as close as I ever have lived
to the sea    this Hudson
that flows both ways
up from the briny sea
and down the Feldspar Brook
out of the Lake Tear of Clouds
joined by the Opalescent
in the headwater mountains
north of the here
that is now and

as close as I’ve lived to the sea

except when I dwelled
in the mother sea

I am proficient at beginnings
a Sunday child
hauled out of my mother
sleeping her Twilight Sleep

[O scopolamine,O morphine
I dream
in vivid hues of unseen things
henbane wolfbane nightshaded poppy
the dueted song in flight
solanaceous papaver somniferum blues
in roseate mansions I dream to forget
the dropping of my body fruit]

on a midwestern winter evening
beneath a full moon
a freshwater infant
delivered from the amniotic sea

uncurled and stretched
still wet
held upside down by my heels
spanked into taking first breath
giving forth first wail
in much the same way
  sheets are hung on the line
  spanked by the wind
  sun dried

the moment so auspiciously right
avant garde I arrived
still    now
many wheelings later
  around the mooncycle
  incompletely ripe

dredging the newborn self
up from
deep memory from
time before
words
became mine

when I ceased to be
small creature of the sea
when I left the sea behind
in marginalia of celestial time
moonlit slipping into the borderlands
between star stippled constellated signs
of earthy Goat
and airy Water Bearer

from water come
the flame of spirit lit
breath of air
touch of earth
    and

II.

the dirt beneath my nails
is midwestern dirt

so far removed
in time
from the places
that first dirtied my hands
and smudged my face

where I learned to look
and to crawl
and then walk
and to talk
to observe the dirt
and its dwellers

began to accumulate
the sediment of memory
shot through    ignited
with wonder

one seed slips from the mother plant
hare brained genes gone awry
a mutated reversion
revisioned
something    perhaps
in the soil where it fell
and took root on its own
not planted

or perhaps a remnant
in the blood     taken up by the cells
from that swaddling
of Twilight Sleep

ear to the earth
  to catch fragments of the subliminal singing
  nightcrawler sung    a miner’s song

on the straw between rows
  in the strawberry bed
  anchoring the skittering runners
  severing umbilical threads

plunging pudgy fingers
  into friable soil
  to make the hole
  to plant the seed
  to watch it grow
  to smell the flowers
  to pluck the pods
  to eat the peas
  raw

on my knees in the dirt
and dirt
  beneath my nails
and smiling
for everything has voice
and they    all
sing to me

my nails    now
with their illusion of
apparent clean
these hands
serpentine barrowed
the midden heaped pulse of blood
snakes toward my fingertips
cached in the unseen dirt
of my childhood
lodged
in my bones
in my soul
the feral song
of self sufficiency

taken up from the dirt
from the sky
from the clouds   flocked and fleeced
shepherded by light-hearted breezes

taken in
in the eating
of sour red fruit from the cherry tree
foraged morsel by morsel
from huckleberry
shrubs as they plink
as they hit the tin
of my bucket
purple up my fingers
dye my muted tongue

census count from the ohio corner
  of paradise:

legless   rooted
all four-feet
  on the grounders
on the wingers within reach
  of my out-stetched arms
flutter byes
night lighting green bellied
  fireflies
alien beauty of
io and luna moth

and sighted higher
much higher
jays robins and
crows oooo crows
in gleaming
black and wise eyed
(how fine I’d be if I dressed like that)
keen eyed knowing
hawks soaring
higher than the wingless fragile kites I fly

bidden and seated
hidden
beneath the willow tree
who like Rapunzel
let down her emerald hair
for me
fingers dappling in the
sometimes flow
of my stuttering
creek

kiss a frog
stroke his cheek
relieved to see
he remains
webbed footed leaper
squatting on the moss
and smiling over
amphibian arcana
he shares with me

"child child, come to me
beguiled grow wild
come   look
and see"

on the domestic front:

chicks hatch   bunnies born
all grow and are eaten
puppies and kittens
are born
and put up for adoption

I remove the skin
from peaches   tomatoes
in canning season

and beneath the roof
my mother
bathes me clean
every night
scrubbing the dirt from beneath my nails

and the amusement machine
a wooden arched philco radio
plays on Saturday morning
and Sunday night

let’s pretend
this is the inner sanctum
(how the door squeaks)
and only the shadow knows

-------------------------

suzanne nixon, to date sans chapbook
(but one coming in the near future)
in her spirit, a Middlewesterner,
born in Michigan
and from Ohio/Illinois/Wisconsin;
now living in upstate New York
where she spins yarn
writes poetry
and carries on passionately
with words

she blogs  words and images at
http://suzannagig.journalspace.com
some of her poems are also here:
http://heretics.bravehost.com/sn.html

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