Martha Deed

The Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park

. . .  The winds' wings beat upon the stones,

Cousin, and scream for you and the claws rush

At the sea's throat and wring it in the slush

Of this old Quaker graveyard where the bones

Cry out in the long night . . .

              – Robert Lowell, The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

a finch sings on a bare branch

the dead are lying where they lay the day before

all dead

still dead

privately and peacefully

expired

until the Quaker women come with rakes and tarps

survey what Winter does to a cemetery in Prospect Park

the gate is unlocked against unwelcome visitors

This is a Private Cemetery

preserved for the peace of the dead

and not for tourists

though old and historic

The mourners come

they have come a long way to visit

their recently dead and buried daughter

She did not die at sea

like the Quaker fishermen of Nantucket

or in war on foreign soil

but – like the others –

her bones cry out for justice

The mourners know she isn't there

but it is the best that they can do

a 10-hour drive through rain and snow 

past Finger Lakes

through the Catskills

the motel in Nyack

then the drive to Manhattan

the search for parking

the mile walk to the friend's apartment

and the next day

the day of the committee's visit

and the mourners’ –

Three subway trains and a walk

to the unlocked gate

even though

They know she isn't there

but it is the best that they can do

Four days away from home

once a year

they climb the hill

one of them stumbles

climbing the hill to the too-soon grave

of the only child of one of them

struck dead by doctors by mistake

the parents still raw with knowledge

The daughter photographed

documented everything

about her life and dying

ordered her mother to report

what happened

and so

the photographs –

a hole just big enough to accommodate

the vaulted ashes black against the snow

and then the setting of the stone

cherry blossoms and a Scarlet Tanager

teasing from a nearby tree

and today the stone

dead leaves nested round it

The women with rakes descend

it is their cemetery

the mourners' by permit only

and only if they follow permitted mourning rituals

which have not been disclosed

first one, then two, then three at once

What are you doing?

Where are you going in our cemetery?

People come here

pretending to be bereaved

and they take pictures

of our private stones

and put them on the internet

What are you doing?

Taking photographs of birds and flowers in early Spring

to remember your daughter by

in this peaceful place?

They lie to us

They violate our privacy

The dead are not to be disturbed

The child's grave

on the hill beside three junipers

no older now than she was when she died

the child is not there

the child's resting place

no place of rest

in the cemetery committee's

graveyard 

*** 

Upon reading Mike Basinski's poetry

Have I reached the age

should I reach the age

when it would be wise

to adopt a form of discourse

perhaps post avant post modern

scattered, dense

sufficiently experimental

a formal dementia if you will

married to the real thing perhaps

so no one could tell

unless the poet switched off

mirth and glee revealing agony

Is it March or April she asks

I must date this imprecise text

precisely

Birthday coming

on its way as well:

climate change

unsafe beaches

sharks near shore

Do you get my drift?

We are eating meatloaf from the church today

"Memes" are all the rage in my circles

like kumquats

One's a fruit

I cannot classify the other

Just know

I am far too young for "Beat"

Post-Beat maybe tho' trains no longer

glide with open doors across green prairies

sucking college kids off rural campuses

for rides to Faribault

They say

they'll figure out later

how they'll get back to campus

after riding freights with bums

No guns in those days

a rifle maybe

needles and knives like today,

and home-brewed beer

Hopping freights not against the rules

like hitchhiking back to Northfield

which could mean a letter to your parents

from the Dean

It's a joke set next to Faulkner, Hemingway and Kerouac

Only Faulkner fit to speak at convocation

The rest are dead, I think

or have pets which are not allowed

or smell

Finally, to our alumni let me add

Stay home in a tornado

on the lowest level of your house

or if it's new with no below

ride out the storm in tub or shower

Remember your alma mater in your Will

Godspeed

To revise this poem:

chip away at dross

expose intention

Yeah

*** 

Climate Change

Our pet snake Lotus escapes from her skin and discards it in the pachysandra patch at the foot of three concrete steps to the front door of our house.  Though grass breaks under his feet, the master mows the lawn atop his shiny green John Deere, the cutting akin to trimming a bald man's hair.

Fourteen species of baby birds zip across the yard chasing bugs and thumping against the kitchen window.  They fall twisted to the ground, come to, and fly over the deer cloth fencing. 

We walk outside and are not bitten.  Deer pant in the woods, too thin for ticks.

A fruit ripe with evil:  Suck the juice out of it.  Frack it.  Freeze it.  Dry it.  Set it in a dark closet for ten years.  Let all laws expire.  Wait for the victims to die.  Failing that, wait for the perps to die.  And then say you're sorry, but don't tell them what

you're sorry for.

It's a riddle –  what we are talking about.  You could call it climate change.  The temperature rising if you will until the gun catalogs sit singed in a gray metal mailbox if you don't collect it soon enough.

You could call it that.

You could call it the inconsiderate multi-diseased adult who enters your ER expecting cure, but finds death instead.  Ruining your record by raising patient safety issues, threatening your bottom – line  – when the wrong voices are listened to, the carpets rise and dust balls fly in the executive offices, IEDs of a bureaucratic sort created by the rank amateur PhD types who don't know how to count adverse events – properly

or drones sent to bring wayward citizens home to their great father in the sky – involuntarily – the flying menless drones fueled by definitions of bad citizenship.

so is it any wonder you have to keep your children under their beds as well and away from positive influences like coaches and priests?

Which brings me back to snakes, but I'm done (for now) . . .

***

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