1.
tree of white star
flowers
bird flashing
a saturated and metallic blue
gossip of
this and that
all the women you loved
in between
our first times
and now
how you don’t really
know
what it means to walk
along a muddy river
in this part
of the country
coming off the trail
and into the dusk
of the neighborhood
how darkness
makes habitation
private
a young pregnant woman
takes his hand
and even she
who has every reason to
doesn’t truly believe
how things are changing
2.
in the square
beneath the sculpture’s
new brutalism
skyscraper’s
late capitalism,
I beat my anger
into something
if not exactly
a ploughshare
at least a cane
to lean on,
as school children
crowd and gape
at the aquarium’s
flatfish, the mystery
of the amphibious,
I saw you turn
you were walking
towards me
you just
didn’t yet know it
3.
flamenco dancer in the pouring rain,
after midnight
I sat zazen
by the window lit by falling snow,
when my father died
all that was left
was my mother’s shattered mind,
she said she’d had
a high fever
for many years
and couldn’t remember
him, anything,
a double rainbow
appears over the bride and groom
and the song that goes
“magdalena, I haven’t
forgotten you”
girl,
in a polka dot dress”
if the sutras are to be believed
Buddha nature is everywhere
and the void
in labor
4.
in the morning
we saw it
a ring of feathers in the yard
the horned owl
that lives
between our house
and the C de Bacas
in this funky neighborhood
had grabbed
one of the mourning dove flock
as if out of thinnest hair
eaten everything
as owls do--
beak feet fat bone
and left
just the fairy ring
of grey and white
feathers
lowing about
in the spring breeze
I have nothing to add
to this
or to subtract
5.
I don’t care if I live or die--
it isn’t all bad
as a way
to get through the day.
still I know
I’ll dip the parsley
in the salt water
to remind myself
of the tears of slavery.
at the party
I can’t help but wonder
how hard can it be
for such a beautiful woman--
and needy too--
to find a man
who’ll stay…
in the dream
the tower room
I’d rented for years
was suddenly painted oaxacan blue,
and full of tents
hung in silk and velvet,
and street festivals,
and unlocked doors.
you said
that even though you were leaving
you thought I could
make a living
there.
About Miriam Sagan
Miriam Sagan is the author of 30 published books, including the novel Black Rainbow (Sherman Asher, 2015) and Geographic: A Memoir of Time and Space (Casa de Snapdragon, 2016). She founded and heads the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. Her blog Miriam’s Well (http://miriamswell.wordpress.com) has a thousand daily readers. She is at work on a utopian feminist novella and a disability memoir. She has been a writer in residence in two national parks, at Yaddo, MacDowell, Colorado Art Ranch, Andrew’s Experimental Forest, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Iceland’s Gullkistan Residency for creative people, and another dozen or so remote and unique places. Her awards include the Santa fe Mayr’s award for Excellence in the Arts, the Poetry Gratitude Award from New Mexico Literary Arts, and A Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa.
tree of white star
flowers
bird flashing
a saturated and metallic blue
gossip of
this and that
all the women you loved
in between
our first times
and now
how you don’t really
know
what it means to walk
along a muddy river
in this part
of the country
coming off the trail
and into the dusk
of the neighborhood
how darkness
makes habitation
private
a young pregnant woman
takes his hand
and even she
who has every reason to
doesn’t truly believe
how things are changing
2.
in the square
beneath the sculpture’s
new brutalism
skyscraper’s
late capitalism,
I beat my anger
into something
if not exactly
a ploughshare
at least a cane
to lean on,
as school children
crowd and gape
at the aquarium’s
flatfish, the mystery
of the amphibious,
I saw you turn
you were walking
towards me
you just
didn’t yet know it
3.
flamenco dancer in the pouring rain,
after midnight
I sat zazen
by the window lit by falling snow,
when my father died
all that was left
was my mother’s shattered mind,
she said she’d had
a high fever
for many years
and couldn’t remember
him, anything,
a double rainbow
appears over the bride and groom
and the song that goes
“magdalena, I haven’t
forgotten you”
girl,
in a polka dot dress”
if the sutras are to be believed
Buddha nature is everywhere
and the void
in labor
4.
in the morning
we saw it
a ring of feathers in the yard
the horned owl
that lives
between our house
and the C de Bacas
in this funky neighborhood
had grabbed
one of the mourning dove flock
as if out of thinnest hair
eaten everything
as owls do--
beak feet fat bone
and left
just the fairy ring
of grey and white
feathers
lowing about
in the spring breeze
I have nothing to add
to this
or to subtract
5.
I don’t care if I live or die--
it isn’t all bad
as a way
to get through the day.
still I know
I’ll dip the parsley
in the salt water
to remind myself
of the tears of slavery.
at the party
I can’t help but wonder
how hard can it be
for such a beautiful woman--
and needy too--
to find a man
who’ll stay…
in the dream
the tower room
I’d rented for years
was suddenly painted oaxacan blue,
and full of tents
hung in silk and velvet,
and street festivals,
and unlocked doors.
you said
that even though you were leaving
you thought I could
make a living
there.
About Miriam Sagan
Miriam Sagan is the author of 30 published books, including the novel Black Rainbow (Sherman Asher, 2015) and Geographic: A Memoir of Time and Space (Casa de Snapdragon, 2016). She founded and heads the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College. Her blog Miriam’s Well (http://miriamswell.wordpress.com) has a thousand daily readers. She is at work on a utopian feminist novella and a disability memoir. She has been a writer in residence in two national parks, at Yaddo, MacDowell, Colorado Art Ranch, Andrew’s Experimental Forest, Center for Land Use Interpretation, Iceland’s Gullkistan Residency for creative people, and another dozen or so remote and unique places. Her awards include the Santa fe Mayr’s award for Excellence in the Arts, the Poetry Gratitude Award from New Mexico Literary Arts, and A Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa.