THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES

THE BALANCE TURNS ON YES

My soul is balancing out there
and the balance turns on yes...
a light burning through black and white,
press printing new patterns
(this is only flat paper news)
I look down from the horrors
of the Sunday paper
to this cat
(who has become my teacher of late)
here on my lap
(warm ease and somehow here being)
with balance here
with balance here seeming
on a thin thin wire
silver spun from some center...
is pure? will hold?
the center holds
(even to that mountain in the distance there)
Yes.

Trusting the morning hand
for some graceful knot,
I look up to bind...
up and out and level
(even to that distant mountain there)
and back to this flat paper news
whose power leaps quivering from points of pain
dangerously shaking the gossamer line.
Almost I hear the fearsome snap:
a heartpulse...and the line holds.
My soul comes comes home again
from rare space
and I stroke the cat
and we enjoy fragrant tea
with some serenity.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

DRAGONS FROM THE DEEP LOCH

DRAGONS FROM THE DEEP LOCH

Up from the deep waters
The deep unconscious
The unreflected upon waters of the oceans
Which hold together this striving planet
Up and out in the open
From these deep waters
The old patriot rejection of old world parentals…
Are we afraid of old European ideologies which suckled
Throughout centuries...and aeons...? even learning all the while
to winnow out some poisons..
...An old-new idea
Is born and in Boston the tea boxes go into the sea
That sea of consciousness
(they sometimes call the marrow in our bones the sea of consciousness)
…that sea of consciousness which ultimately touches all shores on this planet.

“And what is the ocean doing?”

And like the unclean knives buried for centuries on the ocean floor,
The creations in the deep loch come up to walk our modern streets
And populate our screens…for better or worse…we must decide.
The old subterranean dragons in the edens of our ideas…
How to integrate them into our dimly dreamed benevolent humanity?

The patriot’s cry…”from my cold dead hands”…pry this weapon.
And the nation which says it’s “Christian” forgets that the man Jesus
Urged the giving up of weapons…even suggested they be made into
Plows for growing fields of food to feed the hungry.
So we have the rebirth of the tea party…
Rather than leaning shoulders to wheel to actually build
That more perfect union, that more perfect government
Which ultimately leads to the laying down of the weapon
Before we have to deal with that “cold dead hand”…


Fear? Well, bombs, swords…
Those who make them tend to reject
The idea of benevolent evolution for humankind.
Jesus said those who live by the sword will die by the sword.


Do not let us be that ever adolescent culture
Continually rebelling against motherfather countries
In order to discover the “new” identity within….
Let us put down the weapon
Before we are that cold dead hand…

Rather be the hand that signed a declaration of the benevolent
Future for humankind…that promised to be example…
A living walking example…into being.
We must not become that cold dead hand.
We create ourselves each day
According to our idea of ourselves.
Let us welcome the future with warm hands.

--Barbara Smith Stoff
March 24, 2010

AEONS AND SAGES

AEONS AND SAGES

I can give you no children this time.
Yet I am pregnant with your love.
Our gift to life
is nurtured in warmth
of winter evenings and lamplit pages…
history distilled here in rooms
safe for a time of growing.
You read of brave visionaries
and watch modern day news…
and come to the question between.

Dimly we know, we two,
that in me your trust, so carefully tendered,
finds answer and soft shelter
as we walk through the days
of this our morningtime…
noontime…
eveningtime…
toward such bright birthing.

How far we can see…
through suns and moons
as the earth keeps turning
from love to love, aeons and sages:
As we are here to warm ourselves,
Again we eat our bread together.

--Barbara Smith Stoff

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