On The Passing of Time by Maggie Pickard

on the pa s s i n g o f time

Sarah Levine-Simon

Bread Today Sprinkle the yeast on a quarter cup warm water let foam. Meanwhile scoop the pulp from a plump, baked, sweet potato. Mash it and swirl In a cup of water, add a generous teaspoon salt, Mix the flour with gluten a teaspoon per cup of flour five cups in all Dusting your hands as you work the dough. Let rise until double in size push it down, more flour if needed! roll it into a circle fold the circle into a loaf. Tuck the ends securely.

Let it rise again. and bake for an hour at three hundred and fifty degrees. When it is done, It will sound hollow when tapped.

Canto-lope Melon arguing fullness, rough-textured tan and green; Bursting with bravado Slice! Slice! Segments of firm, puckering, orange flesh Glisten as it holds back moisture. Recipe for fulfillment A large, ripe tomato pungent smell of crawling vines with the scent of sunshine Sliced through its equatorial waist Green tea ringlets unfolding until the water become still.

Doris She came from Guatemala. Her sister said she would Love my children as her own, all for one hundred and fifty dollars a week. I did not need someone else to love my children. Her own in want of her so far away And one hundred and fifty dollars such a small sum for that love. But could she cook and could she clean And watch the children some? She said she would and we began as The tomatoes ripened on the vine Against the porch. Heavy fruits, Orange threaded with green, Turning deep red in the August sun; A gestation of hours. The children fought. Our washing-machine shook its demons and Gushed White froth from its seams. The other machines ignored her pleas.

At twelve noon, she pushed strands of hair from her dampened brow and went to the porch There she plucked the Fullest fruit and returned in triumph To slice

A simple dish Set upon the table Some lemon juice and salt. on the porch stood The man from the factory, A friend of her cousin or maybe her cousin. He said he taught English to foreigners. She would go to the factory While the children slept And return to me the next day. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pay her to stay But I sprinkle my tomatoes with lemon and salt now. And swallow remorse.

Waiting Here and There Waiting here, Among this clutter A lemon rind chewed, And tea leaves drying inside the emptied mug Your instructions were to wait here, On this point On the map I almost overlooked, Under a cluster of papers I found a little book And opened it to the pages of our days. Waiting there The sky ripples its grayish haze. The bench spattered and crusted with new paint, The planks splintered Where pebbled concrete used to hold. You repose Hat drawn low on furrowed brow, Surrounded by so many reflections In the duck pond. I barely remember what caused me to go. Waiting here, It seems like a hub. You said you would be here to warm my feet. Your bold mustache Foaming with brew, Lips cherry-moistened and slippery Intent on speaking of souls And garden-variety love clauses. I wait no longer, love. Time has fled me, too!

Unpacking The flowers pressed into the book with the broken spine have begun to crumble Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never gone through these troves Of butter-cups once soft and yellowing Violets, their tiny veins transparent; A once fragrant rose, a four-leaf clover your luck or mine? Pictures faded by memory A Brooklyn Dodgers ticket stub 1952 Now the book will be open forever.

Thoughts flowing on the River Pantoum with 3rd line

Between stops Playing along the way We used to drift Into the hazy atmosphere of your mind We used to drift Toward the sensibility You attempted to describe in you As a face watched from the north tower You attempted to describe in you The mist-shrouded arches Of knitted steel On the open river Of knitted steel The corrugated platform I saw you go from stop to stop Never lingering Will you soon see the thread? Like the triad Will you soon see the thread? Tried and gone into oblivion Nestled down into the mind Again empty.

On Keeping A Journal

My diary often seems like someone else’s. Another person with a big and loopy hand Enlarged the dots freely into prominent circles; Smiling circles.

A poem unwritten occupies neither time nor space; But brings with it a vague understanding. Then some god-like hand drags the psyche with it Into the full bloom of a new consciousness. Someone else wrote this in the notebook I always carry.

III

Wisdom lurks in those little recesses The conscious mind distorts. A feeling returns from a place in My memory of things I’ve never said. And wells up like a sudden regret

It’s simply a matter of perspective. My fountain pen moves in scratchy circles On archival paper. I’ve acquired a taste for Fancy fountain pens that either get lost or clogged up.

The look of the ink setting into the paper Somehow contributes to the process The new entry sparkles in contrast to the others My own words settle into the page comfortably But often without meaning.

The Visit Age in silence Age in blindness A fine-spun sweater in summer Graces humbled shoulders. Seated in a chair Hands freckled with age Feel for chair arms â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for life A destiny of mute beings Propels her. She walked eight miles at ninety-three At 95 she stepped off of a curb An automobile dragged her some twenty yards before It could halt itself, not her. But can she tell us from where she stays Now at ninety-nine, In that soundless, sightless space That it is foyer to a better place?

On The Passing of Time In December, Mavis, hallowed be, Daughter of two saints, Came in from the cold, And stomped like a little heretic on the mud-room floor. From there she tracked over to the refrigerator, Spelled “Frigidaire”. It was lonely in there. Not a thing to eat; She stood with the door open Reading as if in a book. Her best blue dress indignantly arrayed, All folds and pleats. “No end in sight.” bellowed the weatherman. Mavis wailed. The cold, resounding cry caused the pipes to gurgle Under the weight of the creaking, sagging beams. The hall clock chimed Its lady-face tossed between the sun and the moon Mavis took the knitting down from the mantle. How long will a skein of fine wool last? Oh Glory, Glory! The cabbage ferments in the barrel, In contemplation of mint-green days. The meringues heaped high with sweetness, Desire in brimming foam. Click, click. She knitted to the rhythm of time, Right into January. A path from the front door, Adrift in snow. She couldn’t stop now. Soon the pale herald would sound his muted trumpet.

His band reached the star-groves And encircled the light On frozen hill. Someone set the kettle. Mavis knitted into February. Their flag tattered and torn. She squinted. As sunshine ribbons streamed through leaded glass, How young they seemed to her Advancing in a throng. Father’d pour the Sherry. Mother’d serve the tea. Mavis knitted into March, Patches of green along the path of an unforgiving wind. She thought of April Exploded with shoots and yellow stars, Their boots will soon be muddied and set about in rows. Soft, spongy earth Alive April. Alleluja! She would endure yet another year. There would come a time She’d wait no more.

Busy Signal I called to wish you a happy new year But your phone cawed in my ear Like A black crow, Knelling timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s escape, Descending from the sky To peck at the order of things.

Envy The sky blazed blue. He strutted sure. Pillowy plumesColors of glory that graze us so lightly. We told him of our dreams; He hurried away to turn The next corner Where gold glistened from a turreted dome For a while until Its luster tarnished. Unilluminated, once again The sky blazed blue.

Dawn Giant, thumbnail scratch on the black crayon-textured night. In the twilight of my sleep with half-light shed I listen to my heart and think in mirrors before the blazing sky of day scorches The early morning breeze.

The Time I Got Lucky I wore a red raincoat, like a signal. the light flashed green. I stepped out bravely, my right! I only remember the bone-rattling sound and closeness of the ground, condoms, bottle caps and coins pressed into tar. The near crowd from afar, wishing not to see but needing to. I had flown through the air to land there and look into the face of that grinning hissing metal relic. A tiny man ringing his hands in despair. â&#x20AC;&#x153;lie still,â&#x20AC;? they said. I had to find out if I was still alive. And so I ran in circles, wild, frightened Until the police arrived to pronounce me dead; But I was whisked away in an ambulance instead To green corridors and worn linoleum. I remember only feet scurrying. And then I was left to myself alone in that corridor On a cold table to wait and wait for passing time, Shivers racking, fluorescent screams; The casualness of emergency.

Then someone came and asked for numbers, She wore a white coat over plaid and a badge, I gave her one for my sisterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

She went away, never returned that day But then maybe it was only an hour, Time had slowed to still. And then a group arrived; eager faces, They gathered round, White coats, stethoscopes dangling I was to help them, you see. And one began to tap a vein. But instead, I made a pronouncement On my lucky fate, what could they know of it, Only I had stepped off that curb that day, And so I up and left them â&#x20AC;&#x201C; They might be still waiting in that corridor..

A Walk Walking the reservoir Midday scintillating Late summer, Delayed, The wire fence chains the monogamous body Little barges of cement Reveal no flourish..

Coffee Libation for a morning cleansed by night of pinks and grays. Pond-gurgling aroma Fills the air gently still.

The Female Prisoner I write my perceptions on cinder-block walls Under iron bars, too high. My body shrouded and easily accessed in cotton. At the wooden bench I was told to think about my crimes. I can only think about what I was convicted of. I’m lucky to be here, they say. Cinder block-walls make things clear. That’s the purpose of this. We don’t understand gray because it can’t be matched. It is the thing as the thing is of itself with its peculiar blend of shades.

Straw Hat Brimmed in straw Bowed in magnanimous red; Hanging with the lettered grocery bag from the corner tip of the shelf above the clutter; Sunshine outside the drawn blind. In the still, semi-light of the room Day begins to break into lakes of color the well-treaded rug..

A Lump of Clay has no vision like wet cheese pushed and pummeled on a twirling platter.

Lacking Words The English language lacks for words at the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge where sandy swirls and little treads are left drying beyond the bank. Women canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be emasculated so what can they be?

How to Test Recipes If I had been the first person I worked with I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t complain but after the second and third, I lost the sense of tense.

His-Cups

(poem developed messing around with the thesaurus) The old philosopher emptied his cup of hyblaean liquid. The first symbolized all good things in life Epochal hymn Sic! And as he sang his voluble song The ravener downed the second. Hic! No call to glory, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I will be known as one who absorbed his share and spewed back a humble amount.â&#x20AC;? Sic! The light glowed rusty yellow Sunset on stucco. The vendor began to lock up--Sic! A face viewed in a yellow light Eschewing time as some malignancy of the soul. The vendor gone now, He downed the third. Sic Hic! And as he sang in somber rose, The fourth Paltry apotheosis, An old man speaking of the dead, While God, like a sniper Alone in a tower Watched on. Sic!

Acrostic Recipe Slice, sprinkle, chop, add toss! The with - some fragrant well Cucumber salt garlic oil serve.

Claire de Lune The graceful caryatid In a timeless nod Crowned with flowery garlands Slender shoulders, skirt and swan-neck flowing As if over water; She steps from that pedestal at night Foot forward and pointed like a ballerina To welcome her look-alike sister From under a shared mantle. One step down they swirl with lamppost-figurines. Under an opaque, beamless, moon The garden trellis tumbles; Figures in masks of melancholy Crying in the sweet of night; Their song wisps of timeless lyres; Their city has no chord to strum. They beckon from their mute world Until the day dawns Cement and red brick order.

Notebook Notebook tattered and worn, Piling up with other notebooks Tattered and torn; Spirals entangling, edges frayed; Ideas faded, pencil turning to tan. Notebook tattered and worn Piling up with other notebooks tattered and torn Deposited on a lake of notebooks tattered and worn and torn To float in a room of disjointed desk chairs And dusty chalk, an old man’s hat tattered and torn. Rainbow-boxes empty, he can’t write the soundless poem On walls of stone and oak; But from transoms open to the breeze A song floats out of the notebook just laid down Tattered – and – worn – and ---- torn.

The Payphone Under My Window

(A time before the cell phone when quarters were of value and you could never get enough) Blossoms scratch faded sheets; Wisps of color Soft, muted; The street outside breaths Freed from staggering hellions of light; A solitary ring; Small child Patient at the curb Waits as She finishes talking eternity. Receiver dangling From the payphone box; No noise! Only sound with no where to go but here Where it never began.

Shop for Me Shop for me Draping softly, Flowered folds. Velvet enfolding Bolts in a corner Behind a door Beside a window Mellow softly as dark purple flannel The rags of tempest left to expire in loveliness All remnants of pinks and blues And red left to purple.

We The lark is a concept, not a bird Where the stream tumbles into the lake Nap of the terry towel presses into my cheek Stipples. We sway carefree, cheek - to - cheek Thinking about how we fit The stubble of his day-old beard presses into my face Stipples. She became a we.

Night Song at The Museum Night song at seven Moving into streets Of consummate white Tiled entries Humbled but lavish once, Of its own simple accord. Beside a window Where wind carries the name softly outward The love figure departs No one can replace urgency. She swirls Her fan enticing a brief wind Scent of heaven at a lonely hour. “Stop me if I think too much!” She prayed and enveloped the shawl That enveloped the soul. Stitched of lace By nimble fingers of yore And reminded the loyal of necessity On the staircase like the queen’s train, But this prayer, she never finished. A day newly dawned Passed through the salon Through a hall of 17th century portraits To where thickets of color swirled with midnight sky And blazing sun evaded memory.

The Darkened Room

(written when a friend became widowed) She trips across the floor, Over the day’s debris and onto the mattress Broken in familiar places Of ancient arguments— Fruits of years of speechless, touchless nights. Of closeness Too far away from the time of yearning. Loss too hard to contemplate when we’re young. Anger transforms love into Old woman’s song Warnings left over on a plate Harden in stale air.

Last Bus to Detroit 1957 At last dawn, downtown from afar. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s winter out there Gather towards the warmth Out of style leggings Clamber up the rubber-treaded stairs Into the long musty aisle; Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grease on the plastic seatbacks And nowhere to wash your hands until Detroit And the tar scented asphalt studded with bottle-cap stars and tiny butts Tossed by the dispatcher Nose reddened with drink And lungs exploded from the smoke. Just another bus arriving. But when we arrive, we are whisked away top-down through the exploding suburbs As sun Clarifies the coming day.

Q Magritte The solitary night stroller Emerges from deep shadow To walk in still lamplight, And hear whispering beyond walls. Beyond the flat canvas The murmuring of souls.

Americanan Express I signed it. Meant to help? A mean thing to do Have a signature A way of saying I am better than you. She took it. Consumed it, Wished me what was hers and more Let me pay For having signed my life away.

Lake Swimmer Pulling through water weeds, Counting tiles on the ceiling, My memory sensing, The depth Where dreams sink into my soul, Me a water sprite, The lake engulfs, Shoots of light anchored in the muddy bottom, Mystical plant strobes The water defracts and foreshortens. I continue to stroke until I reach situations in ice, Then I smell the chlorine and return to the surface

End of The Line Walk on through, Car after car Jeans hanging, baggy, low The group is the thing You’re going to get to the end of the train Before you get there If you don’t go slow 280th Dreamers on Dyckman Not healthy! Shut your face. He’s got his mother’s eyes, His father’s fists And she with her nails Twisted white and red shavings They traipse on through The sixth car. It’s cool in there. Don’t wanna sit too long anywhere, You do that all day.

It’s A Shame Because--It’s a shame you can’t relax. Because You didn’t finish! As he gobbles up The remainder of my portion. Because It’s a shame you watched the movie Because He went to sleep.

A Niche of Time Between Seasons An inky haze drifts past the sliver moon In smoky tendrils; Here I wait for winter softness The earth to be cushioned from death By softly falling snow Snow, the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s acoustical miracle Bringing out clamorous children Into our midst.

The Glass-top Coffee Table The glass-top coffee table My little upside down world, Reflecting spires from the church That soar high in the blue sky, Amidst white clouds The glass top light-driven Flickering, incandescent I look at myself in Swirling angles The transom over the hallway door The lamp reflections; urban neon as day passes into night. My tiny, tiny room an eternity of space.

Station The mother leans far over the platform to look for the train. Her child looks over too. “Keep back!” she tells him. “You’ll fall down in there.” And he strains against his toes, Keeping an eye on his mother; And you know he’s going to lean just a little closer, “I’m gonna…” Then her voice is lost in the sound roaring though the tunnel. And the screeching halt the train makes To announce it has come to take them someplace. The doors open and the child climbs into the car after his mother That child who didn’t fall over into the littered and Dangerous track.

Power I take the side seat And swing into it Leg over leg Silky Bare to the knees. So easy to be anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Helpless pleasure. At this canonical hour, On the #5 On Riverside Drive And not to notice At first The slip and slide cabal, Carnal!.

Mary Beth, Mary Jo Mary Beth, Mary Jo, Names jarred out of eternal Anonymity. Names confused with daily doldrums. Famous by fluke. A last ripple under a bridge at the intersection Of the powerful and the powerless. Grasping for one brief undirected moment An assault on the world, our lives recoil. All the Mary Beth’s and Mary Jo’s. All the good girls slash at our Mediocrity and embarrass us. All that’s decent in them used up. Small fires consuming themselves. Was there ever anything decent in the Who, what, where, when, why?

Total Recall Out into the swirling night they went, Hell-bent over oceans, They kicked the sea out of its bed; Green phantoms appear Only at certain depths; And dive back in to wait an eternity Until the young god hero returns to the jilted one; He won’t be front page or even B And he’s no messiah, So don’t expect nothing! But he has that stride you want to watch, And hook onto with your eyes. He commands thunder in his own time. In ours, Waves from a murky cistern. He’s the querulous sort – that young man. You see how he’s shaking his head? His father was like that. An old seafarer puffed on an imaginary pipe, Drew his breath in deep He was used to that sort of thing Ancient places known only to the soul Millennium’s interior, Mere spaces on ancient walls Gorgon’s shield. In all the midst, To stand and read from a book, A gallery of monuments, Each a frame of time. The sarcophagus stares open. At the very fore —

Love bouquet full of blossoms Pompous as Rome Mere facades, The gargoyles laying down; Hercules strides. Achilles flexes Clusters of muscled marble And slip into exteriors framed forever

Toothache I have not suffered Toothache For many years â&#x20AC;&#x201C; So When I lost The great gold piece that occupied the space between two teeth, I thought myself impervious To that clanging, Enervating pain Associated with a hole In the mouth Essential to a nerve.

Beyond Our Dreams High in a mountain A stream cascades from some unmapped point It comes to the ears as music spilling Into a rocky basin carved out of this ledge Millenniums ago. The music will not stop to gather there But flows onward accompanied by the whispering forest Beyond the ledge. We used to search for arrows here; for fossils real and imagined. There might be more of these treasures On the mountaintop, beyond our dreams; Near the top a meadow Too steep for foothold.

Classroom Picture: 1952 The teacher, prim, surrounded by children; Their feet dangling from the seats of hard, oak school desks, Monoliths with iron-work braces; Coddling forbidden in these times; Milk and cornflakes sour on my tongue. The inkwell is for stuffing notes through. We learn early what we shouldn’t. Discipline of gaze: Stick your gum-wad under your seat, and say “cheese.”