Rosemary Starace

All Hallows

The dead no longer sip their moon-tea

under maples, no,

they who lingered fragrant in the summer yard

press upon our windows now,

their caverned eyes explicit

in the black glass.

We’ve always known what happens

when the leaves come down. So we light fires,

we stay close to the fires; we twist our grim lips

to show these wraiths that we have nothing

for their empty bags.

All the people who are dead

I am sorry for you. I miss you, too,
those whom I knew. I see you
crowded under my feet, under all
the living feet, heaps of bones,
I think I see a ladder made of bones,
and bone shapes made of bones
leaning toward the ladder
as though skeletons but not                
as alive, as though iron
filings filing like an army called up—
oh you are so dead,
and climbing out is not           
what is going to happen. Underneath,
where you are, there is only deep opening
into further deep.

I am sorry for this. I know you
wanted orange juice,                                       
it’s funny the things the almost dead              
want, I’ve seen it: an English muffin,
and all of it. I’ve offered these to the almost              
dead and they want breath, too. They were     
not interested in flowers.

The Absence

A special burden they release, the pines,

when in June their scented pollen falls

yellow, dulls the lamé sheen of cars parked

under them, and dusts the silky lake.

Every grief and chipmunk set a footprint;

fish kiss at water’s surface, leaving

moments of dark clarity that vanish—

like pricks of ache that needle me

yet I cannot explain or grasp them. Yes,

I grabbed for her, what could I do? She was there;

where were you? She fed me juicy orange

quarters and I grinned with orange teeth. She

fed me under trees, she let me drink

the water. I studied it so carefully

for slightest flicker showing from beneath.

What do I love beyond all else?
                        —Marsilio Ficino

Chill rain constant all day.
Poppies torn like paper on their first morning.
Old peonies dismembered.
I entered a closet to be darker than this.

Tonight,

the wind chimes are incessant.
Their placeless tune I cannot sing, but I
do try, and I feel like a robin or an ocean
of breaking waves. Songs like this arrive
over and over, as souls do, each one different
but the same, acting like thoughts or river-waters
pouring forth only to disappear.

May 13, 2014

Eleven years ago this day,

Daddy died. But not yet: 

at 7:19am, he still had

sixteen hours more. He spoke

on the phone, he asked for

toast. Then he went

into a coma and his hands

became ice. I had some trouble

holding them like he’d wanted me to.

Barker Road Mist, 2.

© Rosemary Starace

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