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As the Crow Flies

The Permanent Press

Part One

    AS THE CROW FLIES

    As the crow flies
    so too, my thoughts
    where the sound of blue
    and the touch of plum
    nest.
    Back to the best of the best
    of
    summer days that
    lie with the scent of honeysuckle
    and the grass on the old baseball diamond
    held young bodies
    listening
    to the sound of river splashes
    over
    round white stones.

    My life stretches out
    unwinding like a shiny yellow ribbon.
    Now I wind it about my hand
    to see how far I went and where.

Part Two

    THE BACKYARD

    The backyard
    was
    a mysterious thing
    full of petals.

    Silky and velvet
    they promised sweet nectar
    to sip
    delicately.

    I could lay down
    on green grass
    smell it deeply
    chew one slender stalk
    while spying the solitary bleeding heart
    mysterious and passionate
    at the end of
    the garden path.

    The lilac bushes
    higher than high
    roses and phlox
    surrounded me
    and I was four
    or seven.

    There were bushes with
    white berries to
    pop
    under your thumb.
    Bushes with red berries
    to split with your fingernails and
    discover their hidden black seeds
    nestled inside
    sleeping.

    An occasional blossomed eccentric
    knowing it's special
    peered
    between the commoners
    with majestic indifference.

    Once I saw
    a hummingbird
    blue like a robin's egg
    so small
    so perfect
    I thought I had
    dreamt it.

    Roses grew in pink
    profusion
    up the lattice work.
    Wearing them
    in my hair
    at the Fourth of July parade
    I didn't win a ribbon but
    thought
    I was beautiful.

    Those days I was
    an innocent dewdrop
    a fresh faced daisy
    watching my Grandmother
    in her blue coolie hat
    digging with patient fingers
    tenderly
    touching
    her garden.

    Those days have
    drifted pass
    as swift as wind
    carried aloft into
    the corner of
    my mind

    Now I watch this
    cool white world and
    wait for Spring
    eager to find my own
    bleeding heart
    in the corner of
    my garden.


    MEMORY

    A house with
    a front porch
    and a hammock
    to dream in
    as the bees buzz
    before the call to supper.

    Across the street the
    ring of horseshoes
    the smell of biscuits
    baking.

    He comes across
    the street, smiling
    with thining hair and
    holes in the elbows of his sweater.

    These are the
    memories I
    taste
    as clearly as I
    feel myself
    now.


    THE MUSEUM

    Early memories
    sifted through and savored
    extrapolated from a misty landscape and
    caught
    to be encased in gilded cages,
    hung from branches
    so I
    can see them
    taste them
    hear, smell, and touch them.

    A museum of my past
    and I
    the doorman with the only key.

    Memories picked not just for joy
    but some from
    pain
    loneliness
    confusion.
    Laughing ones, encased in ripples,
    responding to nudges and grubby, childish fingers.
    Others cast long shadows
    full of mystery and
    strange movements,
    flickering with an insistent light.

    My hanging, gilded cages,
    arranged
    like some ancient, Babylonian garden.
    More real than my present
    safer than
    my future.
    Empty spaces in which to place the
    newly caught and
    music of the sirens
    to guide me there.


    IN THE BACK OF MY MIND

    In the back of
    my mind
    sits
    a woman
    loved by me
    rocking
    enigmatically,
    smiling
    with clear
    green eyes.

    Now
    she sings me
    to sleep
    at night
    in the corners of
    my dreams.


    SPACES

    Spaces
    holding promises
    to fill
    whetting my brow
    moistening my lips.

    Magic gardens
    lavender hued
    papery ferns to
    peer under.

    A cliff cave
    with Indian spirits
    and red clay
    entry
    blocked.

    Later year spaces
    dictated by other
    needs,
    insistent.

    I like my own spaces
    to be filled
    with
    a man
    a rage
    a dream.


    THE SEARCH

    Core hollowed
    vacuum
    pulling me in
    filling myself with
    myself

    Childlike needs
    never
    letting me forget

    Wooly thoughts flitting
    fumbling through ancient
    corridors.

    Afternoon shadows
    display their calling cards
    while I
    wander tentatively
    up the attic steps
    to search in old boxes
    finger the remnants
    imbue with magic
    old shapes and forms
    Searching for the nameless
    listening for no sound

    Later to polish family
    napkin rings until
    the silver warms
    my face.

Part Three

    SIFTING

    Thoughts as
    soft as
    cat's feet,
    spirits with
    strange shapes and sighs
    elusive
    summoned
    sifted.

    Eyes closed
    mood indigo of
    waiting
    hollows round and sensuous
    fully expectant.

    Waiting
    curious
    to see which shape
    misty and mauve
    spirals up
    wistfully
    to be captured
    at last.


    BENIGN THOUGHTS/RAVISHED IN THE NIGHT

    Benign thoughts/ravished in the night
    with the wind howling
    down a long, black chimney
    turning frightful and
    fearful.

    Repose flees/as limitations
    knock
    against an empty head.
    The flapping of wings
    hovers
    over waking dreams.

    Now/I gaze
    on a frosted landscape.
    Memory inspired
    I search for symmetry
    a select sign
    a channel opening up
    a cleansing of the
    confinements of my mind
    as swirling waters rush
    to meet the silent, waiting sea.


    THE AIR LIES/THIN

    The air lies
    thin
    leavened and parsimonious
    unwilling to share with me.
    Where is the pregnant sky of winter
    with its promise of soft,
    fat snowflakes?
    I need to taste it
    to shovel it hungrily into
    my open mouth
    assuaging my stinginess.

    Needing to replenish
    myself
    I wander from one space to
    another place
    aware of my grey
    withering
    finding no joy as
    the hours tick away
    inexorably
    the air still and slender
    as a blade of grass.

    Later
    some semblance of
    balance
    a renewal
    blood coursing through my veins,
    thankful that I breathe
    knowing that I have
    added to
    not
    subtracted from.

    I watch the soft
    shadows fall
    upon
    another day
    guided by the
    sounds of night and
    drink in the cool, crisp air.


    NIGHTSNOW

    Medieval blanket of snow
    spread with fervor
    by wintry spirits
    while
    black faced sheep
    look on
    wooly and resonant with baas.

    The wind slides down the chimney
    seeking corners,
    branches brush each other
    intimately
    while the sky darkens on
    command.

    Finger frosting window panes
    feathery brushpaints
    to be traced
    blueprints for
    one pure thought.
    to be held carefully
    as the winter night
    descends.


    JOTTING

    To long for an hour
    caressing it as gently as
    a lover's back,
    taking it in
    sun and soft breeze.

    I have stolen this
    time hungrily
    pursued it with
    abandon.

    Daydreams drop me on clouds
    Nature orchestrates for me her
    grandest sounds.
    A cricket joins in
    unable to resist,
    chirping with a maestro's confidence.

    Leaves whisper to me
    their secrets shared.

    Strange
    that what I wanted
    was
    this,
    a few jottings
    eyes to watch
    ears to hear
    scratches on a page
    feather inks
    for only
    my eyes.

Part Four

    BLACK BIRDS, SHIMMERING

    A blanket of black birds
    shimmering
    spreading out over the yard
    shadowing,
    massive displays of
    awesome flutterings and
    shrill sipped cries.

    On cue
    they rise again as one
    sweeping themselves into
    the sky
    tremulous
    beating
    shrieking fluttering feathers
    pulling up and
    fanning out
    over a small town at twilight
    shadowing its breath.


    UNTITLED

    Autumn days birth
    September nights.

    A prescient coolness
    pushes
    petals off slender stems.

    Minds wander off to
    think of
    death
    and snow.


    TAPESTRY

    Color cloaked
    abundant autumn
    celebrating riots of color
    crisp fires and flames
    passionhued and urgent,
    Tapestry treed
    woven majestic with kingly tints
    embossed in splendor,
    reaching splendid.

    Around each corner
    a still life vibrating
    shimmers of trees
    a cradled desert mirage
    of reds and golds
    Byzantium boldness.

    Leaves sparkle and dance before they fall
    to lie upon the ground
    passion spent, but still
    remembered
    while tree trunks are sleeved in somber colors
    waiting to become silhouettes
    against the winter white.


    SIGNPOSTS

    A swallow skims the ground
    belly almost touching
    each blade of grass
    satanic shape,
    exuding joy and freedom.

    Robins hop like
    pogo sticks
    along the yard.
    They line up
    one by one along the garden posts.

    Proscribed spaces
    dictate my relationships.
    Unaware
    I place them
    all along the weathered fence.


    INCHWORM AND I

    I saw an
    inchworm
    hanging by a
    slender thread
    from a nearby maple tree.

    Worms make me feel squeamish
    but he looked so
    vulnerable.

    Working so hard
    at his
    little task,
    I felt a common kinship.

    I even thought him
    rather cute
    slender, rosy
    green
    soft.


    EARLY MORNING/ROLLS IN GENTLY

    Early morning
    rolls in gently
    off the back
    of night.

    A bob white
    swells his breast
    over
    the red raspberry bush.

    A harkening
    a swell of sound
    a bright blue
    sky morning.


    THE RAM

    The days slip by swift
    as a swallow
    swooping and soaring.
    Nights a
    flickering,
    a dark midnight wrap.

    The black ram is dying
    ancient and massive, he
    stands.
    head down among
    the trees, he
    waits.

    Newborns push out to
    play and prance on
    their first day while
    the owl hoots
    at the top of the spruce.

    Each morning I
    make a pilgrimmage to
    see what has died and
    what has been born.

    A flower seeks the sun
    while the legs tremble and
    the ram comes crashing
    down.

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Excerpted from As the Crow Flies by Judith Shepard. Copyright © 1984 Judith Shepard. Excerpted by permission of The Permanent Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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