To my sister, Roberta
I with what tenderness, my sister, life invites us to the dance ten years of silence have passed between us & turned at last into a grief in need of song, a blossom in search of soil & light its roots & leaves intact some fine chink of cold has gone & taken with it my anger left me with only love I want to put a poem together the way it feels something of life, some- thing good bids me sing. the red morning sky turns gold before it fades into the day. I try to take those colors with me, from my run, and paint them into poetry II I hold on to a Christmas tag that says “the smallest mouse is wonder enough to stagger sextillions of infidels” love, Bobbie West Webster days, library club and Miss Genung, you as class valedictorian, my older sister who was adored by me the gown you made for your wedding, how happy I thought you were visiting you in Boston, your marriage dissolving and you had changed, grown angry I was torn, not coming by bitterness naturally still, obliged to you your divorce destroyed us both for a terrible measure of time wrenching pain, your wanting to be freed, needing your family’s support and they not hearing you III years later, the final divorce was at my husband’s grave you stood there, stone-faced, looking like your mother as you age refusing to acknowledge her or dad who stood across from us, pleading silently I can’t forget the long ride back, my tears, and your sharp words, “cut out the act”; how could I grieve, honestly, for a drunk I couldn’t live with you went home to New York, and I, back to the remnants of my life and that was it, almost the end, an impasse your judgments were, perhaps, correct yet not for me as are my ties, my own devotions not for you Yet if I could, I would go back & plead life’s case, and ours for we are sisters, still IV peace settles in sweetly this afternoon the flavor of a fine natural tea the wholeness of the earth (its color, smell & Spring with it) this moment is mine; the layers of grief fall away; my own bare branches divine the sun we have survived, my daughters and myself we have suffered keen-edged, the memories return coming home from the hospital, having survived the storms my daughters waiting for me and Laura, caught in the cross-currents, days when she was gone, I didn’t know where or why or could she get above the maelstrom all of that now changed by distance hope like some ancient Yoga, by holding on and letting go at once this sorrow bothers me the garrulous, silver trees whisper their windy secrets and I, at a loss for words and I, at a loss for life drive slowly down my daughter’s street how difficult the days til now I want to do all the things I’ve never, through my own dullness, done I read poetry aloud and take my tofu seriously. my tears tell me you have survived & bitterly still, I need trace the words with my hands are you well, my sister?
