I like being
The moon
To your sun
In Toni’s spiral Milky Way
ARTICHOKE SOUP
let me die
in a bowl
of artichoke soup
from Guy Savoy
surrounded by garlic
cloves and zucchini
blossoms
please wash me down
with a 2002 Ramey Cab
I love the bread tray
too
as long as a block
I’ll have the lemon
bread and the seaweed rye
tucked under my arms
my smile will be
enhanced
by goat butter
my sautéed quail
is floating in
I know
I know
I have to go one day
so please let it be
in pureed artichoke
no oil
no wine
just pure springwater
artichoked
soup
ON KNOXVILLE, TN
This poem was a love poem to my grandmother. I spent my summers with my grandfather and grandmother and ultimately lived with them during my high school years. I was born in Old Knoxville General Hospital; the first person in my family not born at home. I am a Tennessean by birth and that proud state has produced, nurtured, and helped create a lot of writers, composers, and even a statesman or two. I am from Appalachia. The Tennessee mountains with the early evenings and that great morning light made storytellers out of all of us. From Davy Crockett and his “bear” tales to James Agee to Dolly Parton. Parton is also a great businesswoman so her contributions reach beyond her art. I think you always write what you love. Whether it’s your grandmother or gourmet cooking or mountains and rivers. Sunsets kissing the tallest building or chipmunks scattering off to bed. I like the quiet. And I like the sound of the quiet. I’m a mountain girl. I listen and make lists of what I hear.
AFFIRMING MY BIRTH DATE
Though I Have No Intention of Running for Any Public Office
I became concerned because I know you spend a lot of time on the Web and you have discovered a lot of things about me that even I didn’t know and actually hadn’t questioned. For example, a few years ago you uncovered my real birth year so I quite naturally became concerned when you once again asked: Was I am I sure that I was born on June 7th? I wanted to ask my mother when you first questioned me but you had given me such a lovely box of stationery that I feared were you to be proven correct you might ask for its return though ultimately I could find no one so worthy of the note cards that I manufactured reasons to send notes to you. Now that they are gone I am trying to be a woman about this and face facts: I might actually have been born on June 6th.
Unfortunately, the family has used up our allotment of Day Passes for this quarter so I could not zip up to ask Mommy and as you had pointed out she was probably not watching either the time or the day. I know it was at 6:00 A.M. that I first drew my breath on my own but that was only because I was upset that Dr. Presnell hit me. Even then I found beating the life into infants was cruel and unusual punishment making it a federal case but Mommy stuck something in my mouth preventing me from making my case. It would be twenty-six years before I remembered to bring that up again.
But thank goodness the Fates are kind when Mother Nature and others of her ilk are hard-nosed. The Fates allowed me to call my grandmother who actually turned out to be the woman I needed to ask, since she was not engaged in the distraction of my beginning journey nor the anxiety my mother was probably experiencing while I began it.
Grandmother remembers looking at her watch because she only had two watches in her life and Grandpapa had given her this one on their fortieth anniversary. Grandmother always adored, and that should be in capital letters, two things that were in a nonreciprocal relationship with her: Racehorses and Diamonds. She was madly in love with my grandfather, adored her three daughters, and, I think, took some pleasure in her six grandchildren but the capital letters still go to Racehorses and Diamonds. Her eyes would glaze over in ways I have no words for. Grandpapa couldn’t handle horses after they moved to Knoxville from Albany, Georgia. If Louvenia wanted horses she should not have sassed that white woman, he would laughingly say to me. I knew to keep out of it. But diamonds were another matter. As nationalistic as she was she could justify diamonds because they come from Africa so she looked at it as a rescue mission. One of the reasons I have never sought a Day Pass to talk with my sister is she took Grandmother’s diamond rings that my mother wore all her life and gave them to Thomas. Of course, it goes without saying I can purchase a diamond ring or earrings or things like that but to me it was never the diamond, it was that I know he saved up for them; earning extra money tutoring Latin and being a Poll Watcher and serving on the Grand Jury. Of course, I recently read they are no longer going to pay folk to be on the Grand Jury which I think will mean folk will decline to do so but that is not our question here. I am a big fan of paying citizens to do good things but I natter which I do not intend to do.
I was born on June 7th because Grandmother was there holding Mommy’s hand. My father was there uncharacteristically being supportive until he saw he had another girl and then turned to my aunt Agnes and said: Ag, ain’t she ugly? Not really a question but seeking an affirmation of what his heart, I had to hope, and not his eyes, saw. I heard him. People forget even folk in deep comas hear what is being said. I knew Gus and I would face difficulties but at that point my grandmother, having allowed Dr. Presnell to beat me and Mommy to stuff something in my mouth to keep me from cursing the doctor out, said: I like her. Name her after you. And Mommy did. And I proudly carried that name until Mommy moved to Heaven. When I got to officially name myself. I am Nikki. Born June 7, 1943. No matter what the Web or the Birthday Fairies think. I am me.
THE AMERICAN VISION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ON THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
150 Years After Lincoln
70 Years After Marian Anderson
At this moment
Resting in the comfort of the statue
Of the 16th president of the United States
Missing
An equally impressive representation
Of his friend and adviser
Frederick Douglass
We come
On this day
Recalling the difficult and divisive war
We are compelled
With a prayer in the name
Of those captured and enslaved
Who with heart and mind
Cleared the wilderness
Raised crops
Brought forth families
Submitted their souls
Before a merciful and great God
To acknowledge that The Civil War
Was fought not to free the enslaved
For they knew they were free
But to free the nation
From a terrible cancer eating at our hearts
At this moment
In which we are embarrassed
By the Governor of our fifth largest state
Who appoints a man to the United States Senate
To which both he and his minion agree:
The Letter of the Law
Is more important than
The Spirit of the Law
When we are dismayed that the accidental
Governor of the Empire State can find
Just one more reason to rain pain
And rejection on a family that has offered only
Grace and graciousness
After two hundred years
When we rejoice that another son
Of the Midwest has offered himself
His wife and his two precious daughters
To show us a better way
We gather
In recognition and understanding
That today is always and forever today
Allowing us to offer this plea
For light
And truth
And Goodness
Forgiving as we are forgiven
Being neither tempted nor intolerant of those who are
We come
At this moment
To renew and refurbish
The American vision
Of Abraham Lincoln
12 February 2009
I AM AT THAT POINT
I am at that point
In life
When I reread
Old books
Bake my mother’s favorite recipes
Snuggle with a sneezy quilt
Listen to my old rock and roll records
Feel comfortable
And comforted in my old nearly ragged bathrobe
I am keeping my house shoes
With the hole in the bottom
Though I no longer wear them
And yes the smell is long gone
From that bottle of Joy
Which still sits on my bathroom dresser
Embracing the old things
Is a good new thing
Like kissing you again
And not really paying attention
To whether or not
The Redskins score
I HATE MONDAYS
I hate Mondays
And Tuesdays
And especially Wednesdays
And Thursdays
I despise Fridays
because Friday nights come
And Saturdays
in the evening
When other folk are getting
Bathed
And smelling good
And dressing in something red
And smiling
I have a special place
in my heart to hate
I’m not fond of Sundays either
And every day of the week
Is awful
I hate whole months too
And seasons
Do I ever hate Seasons
Spring when everything is new
Summer with its salty sweat
Autumn when the gathering starts
And that winter cuddle
I hate it
I hate hours too
And minutes
I even hate seconds
I hate it all
Not being in love
With you
Anymore
A SONG FOR A BLACKBIRD
(for Carolyn Rogers 10-4-10)
We look for words:
intelligent intense
chocolate warm
ambitious cautious
to describe a person
We design monuments:
the Pyramids the Taj Mahal
the Lincoln Memorial the Empire State Building
the Wrigley Building Coffins
to say someone was loved
We sing a sad blue
Song
We sing a river—no—bridge
Song
We sing a Song of a Blackbird
To say
You will be missed
ICARUS
I lived on Burns Avenue in Wyoming. I attended Oak Avenue School. I usually walked from Burns to Pendery to Oak Avenue. It was a beautiful school. We had swings and monkey bars and a baseball and kickball field. And I think my favorite memory is Mrs. Scott, who was my first- and second-grade teacher, taking us into the school ground one morning showing us how to pick dandelion greens. We took them back in, cleaned them, and put them on to boil. We had sour milk that we churned into butter while others were making corn bread. That was lunch one day and it was wonderful.
School in those days had morning break where you had a half pint of milk and shortbread cookies, recess where you could play, and though we had “graduated” from nap time we still got afternoon break, then home. Home was, for me, a few chores and homework. Actually, I finally landed a job because Aunt Lil would let me wash her dishes for, I think, a quarter a week. I thought I was needed but ultimately got old enough to understand she was just trying to be a good aunt.
One winter it seemed it just snowed and snowed. I was a little girl so I don’t actually remember the ins and outs but Oak Avenue School ran out of coal. We would have to go to Wyoming High over on Wyoming Avenue.
There was a walk that was a shortcut but it was not a place we went to very often. Usually, if we were going to that section of Wyoming we walked all the way down Burns and turned left. I walked to school with my sister most days and there were other friends along the way. We didn’t realize why our parents seemed so upset. We would all just sort of meet up and go to Wyoming High for a couple of days. I think we didn’t have a real sense of segregation at that time; we just looked at it as something new. But everyone kept telling us so often how to behave and what we might run into and to do well in classes that they probably made us nervous. We bundled up and went. I don’t have a memory of those class days other than playground. We, the Oak Avenues, all stood together wondering what we should do when a couple of kids came over and asked us to play ball.
Time would bring different attitudes but at that point Wyoming High welcomed Oak Avenue and we played together. I like to think friendships were made. If Icarus had existed then we would have written poems. And celebrated our differences.
WHEN THE GIRL BECAME A POET
(after Garret Keizer)
when the girl became
a poet
she was so happy
now she could sing her own song
tell the tales of her people
be a truth giver
contribute
something beautiful and useful to the world
unfortunately
the New Order declared the Arts
an enemy
so she went underground
and became a stealth professor
when the student became
a poet
he was delighted
he took to smoking a pipe
and wearing frayed jackets
more and more he was
unfortunately
incomprehensible
and if there was light in his truth
the smoke coming off that place
obscured it
but he was so full of himself he ceased
eating
and was last seen lying
in a gutter
reading a ten-year-old
review of his chapbook
when the clouds became poets
they formed beautiful sentences
in the blue and sometimes at night
using the contrails
there was mystery and amazement
and people were up all night long
deciphering the message
of the clouds
unfortunately
the bat . . . too . . . had become
a poet
and she had a tale to tell of flying
by the scent of fresh fruit
sort of like Columbus sailing
on his Search for Spices
the bat dodged Owls
and the nets of scientists
while sharing her verses aloud
unfortunately
she cried
when she realized poems
were her true calling
not night flights nor
evading predators
but she was such a fragile creature
with no pockets like the kangaroo
nor folds like the walrus
she was vulnerable
to the vestiges of
wind and weather
she feared for the pride
she took in her muse
her fear turned
to depression
and she drank herself
to an early death
by carelessness around
a ten-year-old boy with a slingshot
W
HEN GOD MADE MOUNTAINS
When God made mountains
He made runaway slaves
With no book knowledge of the North Star
Nor botany classes describing moss
On the north side of trees
He made black men and women unafraid
Of mountain lions and Florida
Panthers and no matter what
Teddy Roosevelt tried to show: bears
do not like people
not the cuddly little Koala
not the fierce Grizzly
not the mighty Polar
nor the humble mountain
Black bear . . . all bears and their dens
Are to be avoided
God did make the jackrabbit who could be snared
God made the possum who is slow
God made the clever raccoon
And rivers sweet with fish
He made berries and nuts and green leafy things
Which were safe and good
To eat
When God made runaway slaves
He knew they would need a friend
Not only in nature
But of a human kind
So he sent Mountaineers
He sent white people who would not be a slave
Nor own one
Who would not kill a slaveholder
Nor die for one
He sent a free white man
Who believed in change
And a free white woman who believed in him
And they made their home
Amid these mighty mountains
They liked to have a drink or two
So they welcomed Johnny Appleseed
Who brought stories and fermented applejack
They liked heroes so they welcomed the traveling preacher
With his message of a man “who has trampled out the vineyard
Where the grapes of wrath are stored”
They liked to sing so they welcomed
The runaway slave with his banjo
And friendships were formed
When God made mountains he made men and women
Who would need each other
Who would respect each other
Who would carry the Word so that all men
And women could be saved
When God made mountains
He said “Come unto me, ye who need rest”
And they called it Appalachia, the Original Word
For Peace
And some folk said: This cannot be Done