FACING WEST

FACING WEST

Wild persimmons, red cardinals...
Heart aches for the beauty of the place
To stay and stir among the wintering roots
Tufting through to spring. To Spring? Oh.
The heart caves and whispers
Not, in such deep silence.
Eye watches autumn
Surely sifting summer seeding
For winter's cold keeping
And spring ever calling.
Already I long for spring...
Or fear white winter's dying...
What dies in winter?
Only the summer's dreaming.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

O HENRY'S LAST LEAF

O HENRY'S LAST LEAF

In this classroom,
I wish to compete!
I wish to compete
with whatever
is going on out there!
Last night
in color
and in black and white,
you watched
and you listened
as television reassembled
beatings and rapes and...
and murders.

This morning
I want to read to you
a simple story. O Henry,
teach us to listen
O! teach us to hear
this small quiet voice.

In this room
there are no guns
there are no cries
of pain and horror
to snare your attention...
only this small quiet voice
that says, look,
there is this much good
...in one old man
who is drunk...
most of the time,
so the teacher said,
(one last leaf for O Henry)
and I believe...
the students...
listened.


--Barbara Smith Stoff

BLACK HOLE (space in time?)

BLACK HOLE (space in time?)

Hard words from retreating faces
are cold fingers groping
spreading chill covering
over warm and pulsing life
unveiling self as monad,
an ultimate lonely unit
cooling and cooling into cold compression
falling toward frozen death below degree:
Dante's deepest center emits no light.

Energy is stilled
in cold pressure condensing
past the point of transformation,
isolation bursts from its own intensity
and cold becomes heat expanding
radial reaching, starburst giving
full circle reconciliation...
polar arcs in myriad hue.
Clear-eyed faces, behold!
Such transfiguration.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

SEA CHANGES

SEA CHANGES

I
By the sea the wind
blowing from green white froth
onto a small cache
of live embers in sun warmed sand
whispers old secrets,
restoring old hopes.
So we come back to the sea
for a gift of vision
and we believe…
as the wind turns gray embers
into living fire.

II
And you,
I hold you with my hands
and I sit with you
on the windward shore
the wind carries our words
and twists them chocking
as we gasp for air
we turn and lean into the wind
and glaciers move…
the wind in us and around us
etches lines
forming our faces,
(we must have faces!)
and glaciers move…

III
Tonight there are only cold rocks
and dry brittle bones
upon this beach. The wind
spews out little child cries
and old men’s moans. I cradle
myself against this wind
which gives me no peace—
rises to a shriek, roars and mocks.
The roots are torn.
I crouch with my back to the wind
and feel in my bones
the pain of coming birth…
Will be, Is, is now, is born now
wailing and keening,
the roots…the roots…
Form draws itself up
and walks into the wild beauty,
knowing pain,
knowing the wind.

IV
Sandy beach…
little waves washing
washing pains past hurts
the woundtide recedes
and comes less often…
sunny sandy beach
solitude sun and warm sand
I am
I am warm here
I hear singing.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

THE SOUL TO KEEP

THE SOUL TO KEEP

In a green glade
wherein the deepest pool,
I have carved a cedar box
and lined it well with pearl.
I have cast it all around
with silver fleur de lys
and made a latch from finest gold,
then laced it through with dream.
In it I have kept
the song of the meadowlark,
the call of the nightingale,
and crystal mirrored tears
from the breast of the mourning dove.
All the jewels of heaven
on tufts of velvet green...
the starflung wonder
of red satin summer,
the whisper of autumn leaves
in the splendid melon sun,
the silken petal saved
through silent sifting snow...
And the sweet chalice of spring.
Whoever shall find this store,
I have hidden the key
in the roots of the willow tree
that bends to trace the door.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

BURNING BUSH

BURNING BUSH

Desert Hexagram...
fire over wish
prayer enkindled
from long thoughts in long valleys
and yea we walk through them
the heart falls dead before
moonset. If dawn, a promise:
mothwing...silver...ashpure.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

THAT FIFTH CUP

THAT FIFTH CUP

Be reverent
with the shards
that remain
of that perfection
which was childness.
Turn them carefully
against your callouses,
or listen, as with a shell
to the ear, for secrets saved
toward wholeness.
All these years...
kept in the keep of the heart,
the secret stirs, and Elijah
begins again to whisper.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

ORACLE

ORACLE

Eye, shielded by twin mirrors,
sees anyway, great slabs tremble,
crack and crumble,
gold splintering on iron, hard rock
street rock blaring on glinting gore--
blind entrails spread out, surrendered.
Eye, having once known mercy,
call down blessing.
Machine, grind bone
for sifting in softer wind,
twentieth century afoot in great cities,
this hollowed shard cups the sky and waits.
Green Heart, go silent,
new rains drumming.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

ARIES

ARIES

I am a wick
in the Godlamp
needing only
a gentle hand
and air.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

SILENCE

SILENCE

Like pebbles in water
the words settle
through layers of selves
to deep center...
and silence...
then Self says:
Love is the ground of being.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

FOR WINTER

FOR WINTER

September wind blows
toward the ripening melon,
cultured there in lush green shadows,
such golden globing rounding rounding
truth into beauty...
like a lantern beckoning
in the hand of the Hermit
lighting the path to Ithaca.
You have been gone long enough,
Young Bard of the Modern Altar.
Now is the time for returning.
It is now that winter lamps
will illumine the page
where the heart can write
the Fool's wisdom, as gift
for the coming age.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

ELEVEN NOVEMBER

ELEVEN NOVEMBER

Oak limbs, bare and dark,
reach across clouds of red maples.
Below...yellow lilies
begin their blooming for another season.
Eleven Eleven...

--Barbara Smith Stoff

PERSEPHONE

After the Great Fall,
it is that the warrior has danced upon the bones
of our dismembered illusions
Isis, come now.
Re-member us with new forms, new ideas.
Life must survive.
After the Grail seeking and the Persephone tasks,
tell us what can we envision together.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

TO A YOUNG POET

For dragon’s teeth upon the altar
You are received
Into the great hall
Where the words of poets echo
And whisper from chamber to chamber,
Hang from the horn of a stag,
Ripple in the red pouring of wine…
They lie liquid upon the stone,
Gleam in the glance of a sword,
Hide in the curve of a gown,
And dance out into the green
Green dalliance of spring,
Stirring wild in the woods.
Let your words fall full golden
Into the body of the world,
Then tread Truthfully in the furrowed field
Until the song of the ruby in the marrow
Shall call even the stones from slumber.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

MORNING AGAIN

Rain today softly
the world is washed clean
today
a new light
waits in the mists there
in the distant trees
softly
lighting our gaze
toward All Dreaming.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

DOE TRAIL LANE

Down in the meadow
the crack of the day
is marked at meeting
by the sound of shooting,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

Counting Lane by Lane
cleanly laid out...
Pinto, Polo, Possum,
house by house to the lake,
tall thin saplings fling up
their fretwork and veining,
simply ending up there
in the grey flesh of heaven,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

Down in the meadow
the crack of the day
is marked at meeting
by the sound of shooting,
down at then end of Doe Trail Lane.

Being warm inside this cabin
and knowing, that come dark,
I will be able to nestle myself
with blankets, and lay me down to sleep,
I look at the stars on the covering
my mama sewed for me...
and, hearing a shot,
I look through the window.
I ask for clean release
for the hunted; for the hunter,
down at the end of Doe Trail Lane.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

ALABASTER

I am partial to spring and autumn
as I am to dawn and twilight
(that most fleeting chance
between curtains),
as I am partial to alabaster,
soft incandescence
blending soil and light,
earth longing for sky,
glowing like yellow roses
(awash in Rainlight).

LET US TALK OF MERLIN

(though you have written poems for me)
I have been thinking for a few days now
my child, I have never written a poem for you,
but-my God! what worlds beyond words
I want to say to you!
How does one say such knowing
without stirring old fears
sprung from the deep
and disguised
in angry colored cloaks and dark cowls?
Awesome shapes towering over innocence
only two feet high, and crowned with sungold.

How can I convey to you some wisdom
for dealing with a world of fierce faces
and bony hands...the fat bellies which mock
and laugh when you are hungry? Mechanical
monsters which in their shiny surfaces
reflect back to you...only surfaces...

Wwhat consummate thievery!
There are monstrous and vacuous and false Merlins
who simply deconjure the human soul...
We are left to endure phantom pains and empty noise.

Then, there is the other world, which can be,
can be, only if we can learn to be, or bear to be,
Merlins ourselves and create forms which truly sing.
So how can you--slender little one--
balance on the fine line between,
allow the dual play, and still grow
with verve and grace and understanding?
Dare I believe that some new Merlin
works a final magic with love's alchemy,
transmuting base offerings, and...moment
by moment...fills the inward coffer?
For this you must find your own teacher,
and how then dare I help you choose?
(my heart suspends its beating here and listens)

--Barbara Smith Stoff

HEXAGRAM: PRAYER

Given the seasons,
we eat the yellow squash
of summer
and spit the seeds into warm soil
of autumn
New Moon Earth Mother
and keeper of all unsorted seeds,
Oh! protect the best of these
from the cutting knife,
reasoning beyond depth,
death, and all dark wisdom,
Keeper of curling green wands
lifting now to light.
Earth Egg Number Eleven.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

WELCOME HOME

In this morning's garden
a most lavish butterfly
of velvet brown and corn yellow,
a messenger, perhaps
from your spirit winging ahead,
too eager for droning engines.
Now, here on the ground,
I feel that butterfly in my heart
fluttering to greet you--
what if the green hills and blue flowers
are not enough for such an event?
Across miles and miles of sky and field
laced with silver water ribbons...
Ah! the world comes on butterfly wings!
Grand daughter, how wonderful you are.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

DAFFODILS

DAFFODILS

Through long winters
my feet have traced a new path
through unpatterned shadows
from ice-laden limbs of bare trees.
Bare trees cannot shelter
...even sparrows...
yet they do offer themselves
as cold crystal prisms
as pale sun warms the waiting
for some sound of spring.
There! Yellow chalice-faces,
green-stemmed hope--
daffodils breaking through--
offering--There!

--Barbara Smith Stoff
(written many years ago as I sat in a library
reading Wordsworth's poem)

INNER CITY WINDOW

Old woman, forgive me for watching you
from this high hotel window facing north
(through historic palms growing
straight up out of concrete--
it takes a long time to grow that tall) I see
early mornings you come out to hang up the wash,
white and pink sheets, red shirts, dark socks,
a little girl's dress...I notice you limp a little,
and I imagine the joints are large, as your fingers
work with old weathered wood of clothes pins.
I see your son come out each morning too,
he waters the corn growing at the back of the yard,
a little green garden, secret behind high brick walls...
the corn has sprung out tassels this week.

I take my briefcase and hit the road
on behalf of the State Board of Education,
and come back to the window late in the day.
Sun and wind slant into the palms
and on to the green plants in your kitchen window,
birds settle in for the night, a whole chittering colony,
invisible under the laurel leaves...
Your son comes out to check his corn and feed his dog
beside a child's red wagon...the washing is gone now,
gone on to whoever needs fresh clothes for tomorrow.
I look (do you feel my intrusion?) as I pick up my pen
to write, and I wonder which among us has found wisdom.
--Barbara Smith Stoff

August

The morning glory has gained
the very tip of the pine tree
and I contemplate a perfect stairway
of green hearts lying full open
in the sun's exuberance,
transmuting to royal magenta
the summer's joy in fullness.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

The Sunday Times Museum of Fine Art

I see too,
remembering Auden's Icarus,
that when it comes to suffering
they are seldom wrong
these reporters and their cameras,
the way they catch tragedy on the human face,
and yet sometimes they fix for us
in their instants and afterimages
...something achingly beautiful, incandescent...
so human, so human rising up.

Take this picture of Redgrave for example.
I have kept it here on my desk,
for weeks now, have studied her expression...
hand gesturing for some ideal, tender,
perhaps clear only to her.
I have met those eyes, the lips
pursed to appeal from her side.
I know little of sides and batles,
but I know that face.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

For Misha on her birthday.

BEE AND LAVENDER

Waking from sleep
twice of late
I have felt your presence
announced by fragrance
of bee and lavender
which you made for me.
Even though that small jar is closed and in the drawer--
I know it's you
come to visit me
while you sleep no doubt
your spirit finds free to waft toward
and toward--your grandmother--
as in the old days when you were three and snuggled so happily
onto my very pillow--
Such a good presence you are still--forever.

(c)-- Barbara Smith Stoff

Again, I begin with a thought from ...William Stafford's poem "An Introduction to Literature"...

...so we have to live that dream into stories
and hold them close at you, close at the
edge we share....