Road of Sand on Likoma Island
At first the road which was nothing more
than a narrow dirt path seemed unbearably
long as I shouldered my knapsack
upon my young American-made back.
Jagged stones flew up from my feet
toes bare and exposed in sandals
landed in the hot dry sand that covered
all the land on that remote African island.
We walked, my husband of less than a year
and I, next to each other—but never holding
hands; ninety-five degree heat made us
sweat like long-distance runners—even our
fingers were too slippery and wet.
At first our destination seemed plausible
but what did we know about how that
dirt road from the steamship-landing to our
Peace Corps house was our only way out
with its winding turns and rocky habitat.
What did we know about how
that five-mile hike each way twice weekly
to get letters from home would encumber us?
Five miles of sand. Five miles of brown grass.
Five miles of silence as we sat under a baobab.
What did we know about how on some roads
love can bloom and on other roads cannot?
Back in 1969 while our friends protested
war in Viet Nam, we celebrated our first
and second anniversary— hiking that long
trail of sand little realizing at the time
Love needs something green to thrive, to stay alive.
Deep Winter
To create the perfect picture
of your memory of deep winter
you paint a frozen river next to thin
brown trunks of trees that spin
their bare branches into spider webs
silhouetted against a grey sky bed
to open the door and step outside
into the pristine snow which you deny
is deep as sorrow waiting to subside
to hear your door latch tight behind
to plod along the winding stream
to tramp through mounds of silent screams
to drag a fallen branch and obscure
your footprints, your goal to reassure
that this place, so cold, so barren and still
like the river of your childhood—the hills
where cousins played, skipped stones
skimming deep into your skin, your bones
to imprint shallow footprints,
impossible to follow, to leave no hints
to bury all inside your memory
a cold, still life your heart’s treasury.
The World Demands Daring, so
Thank You, Emily Dickinson
In the early morning darkness
my sixteenth summer
I heard voices
in a church camp
open air cathedral
a poem
I read in school
hope, a bird
perched in my soul
preparing to soar
fueled fear
Flying demands daring
As a child
I stared out windows
birds sailed high
above the desolation
She in a room
at her square desk
in Amherst
grasping her pen
isolated and staring
at the tombs
must have felt
her self emerging
from the broken shell
her arms, feathers
her nose, a beak
a Phoenix rising above
the burning world
her words had heat
her voice released
the egg shattered
words soaring
gliding
beyond the stones
The voices I heard
that summer
were hers
and my own
ready to bear witness
to see the world aflame
and still to rhyme
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