7 Sister poems

Between pond and sheepbarn, by maples and watery birches, Rebecca paces a double line of rust in a sandy trench, striding on black creosoted eight-by-eights. In nineteen-forty-three, wartrains skidded tanks, airframes, dynamos, searchlights, and troops to Montreal. She counted cars from the stopped hayrack at the endless crossing: ninety-nine, one hundred; and her grandfather Ben’s voice shaking with rage and oratory told how the mighty Boston and Maine kept the Statehouse in its pocket. Today Rebecca walks a line that vanishes, in solitude bypassed by wars and commerce. She remembers the story of the bunting’d day her great-great-great- grandmother watched the first train roll and smoke from Potter Place to Gale with fireworks, cider, and speeches. Then the long rail drove west, buzzing and humming; the hive of rolling stock extended a thousand-car’d perspective from Ohio to Oregon, where men who left stone farms rode rails toward gold. On this blue day she walks under a high jet’s glint of swooped aluminum pulling its feathery contrail westward. She sees ahead how the jet dies into junk, and highway wastes like railroad. Beside her the old creation retires, hayrack sunk like a rowboat under its fields of hay. She closes her eyes to glimpse the vertical track that rises from the underworld of graves, soul’s ascension connecting dead to unborn, rails that hum with a hymn of continual vanishing where tracks cross. For she opens her eyes to read on a solitary gravestone next to the rails the familiar names of Ruth and Matthew Bott, born in a Norfolk parish, who ventured the immigrant’s passionate Exodus westward to labor on their own land. Here love builds its mortal house, where today’s wind carries a double scent of heaven and cut hay.

sister was the wolf & could cross easily through the mountain dark to den keen & quivered with the muscular siege of slit    purse purple with hours purse purple with birthwork her sight both inward- & outward-lit on what small sparkle of pyrite in the silt or the thick smell of her own wilderness opening shit & hair & blood each little birth an astonishment of form inside its own tiny veil licked toward the air of this Other Side [Live!] then that sound from the hospital’s infant table after what seemed like years of silence     a mew which held inside it all the voices of this dream & other animals trying to begin

for elaine philip on her birthday me and you be sisters. we be the same. me and you coming from the same place. me and you be greasing our legs touching up our edges. me and you be scared of rats be stepping on roaches. me and you come running high down purdy street one time and mama laugh and shake her head at me and you. me and you got babies got thirty-five got black let our hair go back be loving ourselves be loving ourselves be sisters. only where you sing i poet.

So déjame contarte un cuento, una historia es que lluvia    rain       agh       what’s the word                     tey tey at?                       eltiw? Ateltiw? Last night, Atelti came after class. Siempre sabes when she’s here because you hear hail on the windows, the flapping of the leaves, las hojas, ne iswat AND ne kwajkwawit, los árboles, trees I figure I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that she visited seeing how dark I was, un ichan of  negro, of  zájtik. And zájtik isn’t bad. Sometimes it brings rainbows, arco irises, kusamalut Atelti told me something she heard in El Salvador, algo de mis abuelos y abuelas, both alive and dead Ne muyut shipanu sempa pal ne kali pal ne takamet, siwatket, Ajkawat ne neshti ka ne ejekat tik ne weytepet, ne tiupan, Ne ilwikat, ken titajtani — tzalan ne ashal, ne apan, ne ujti The fly enters every house of man, woman leaving ashes to wind for the volcano, church Sky, how do you ask — in between sand, river, road So what does it mean? Where’s the answer at the end? The moral? The hail rattling outside: clattaraka araka araka araka araka — cla ttaraka taraka taraka taraka taraka taraka ka ka ka kuh kuh and me without my raincoat. “Don’t be outside by the time I leave,” I said. “Y qué,” she said as more hail hit the windows, a few pellets falling onto the carpet inside. And it continued. And she added some rain a bit after. When it was time to leave I stepped outside it still rained and was offered an umbrella to the car which I refused. Mi hermana, Atelti, was there to stay. So I thought, “Get   wet. If  you’re so desperate Talk Dígame” And she rained And vapor seeped out from my buttons

For Marilynn Nihideezhí, it was a moist June afternoon when we buried you. The Oak Springs Valley was dense with sage, cedar, and chamisa; and gray, green, and brown shrubs cradled the small cemetery. The sky was huge overhead. Your son said later, "Did you see the sky? It was purple. I knew it would rain," he said. The dark Carrizo Mountains were so clear. There were so many people, Sister. Many of your friends whom we didn't know, and your former schoolmates whom we remembered as children, and Sister, we met many relatives for the first time. We cried, not wanting to leave you in that serene place. We hesitated, though our father, his parents, and their parents are buried there. Our older sisters thought ahead to bring flowers for them. They huddled quietly over their graves a few feet away. Shideezhí, remember how red the sand is? The men—your sons, our nephews, grandsons, and various in-laws— took turns filling your grave. Their necks and arms were streaked with dusty sweat. They kept their heads down; their faces were damp and eyes, swollen. We had to get it all out; we cried and held each other. My granddaughters hovered near me as if I might faint or fall unexpectedly. Did you see, Sister, the way the grandchildren fed and served everyone? They guided the grandparents and the elderly to their chairs. Once seated, they served plates filled with mutton ribs, potato salad, corn, thick slabs of oven bread, crispy fry bread, and Jell-O salad. They placed the salt and pepper—that enduring couple— before us and implored us to eat. The two delights we relished were good— hot, strong coffee and cold, crisp diet pop. We ate for you; we consumed your meal, Shideezhí. We ate to honor the times you cooked for us— those tasty dishes, scrumptious pastries combined with laughter, silly childhood memories, and always teasing jokes. Sister, I didn't know how we would make it; it is still too much to think of you not being here.

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the same A lov'd regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny— A world to roam through, and a home with thee. The first were nothing—had I still the last, It were the haven of my happiness; But other claims and other ties thou hast, And mine is not the wish to make them less. A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; Revers'd for him our grandsire's fate of yore— He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. If my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen, I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox; I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe. Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift—a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive. Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outliv'd, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something—I know not what—does still uphold A spirit of slight patience; not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. Perhaps the workings of defiance stir Within me—or perhaps a cold despair, Brought on when ills habitually recur, Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air (For even to this may change of soul refer, And with light armour we may learn to bear), Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot. I feel almost at times as I have felt In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, Which do remember me of where I dwelt Ere my young mind was sacrific'd to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love—but none like thee. Here are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation; to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; But something worthier do such scenes inspire: Here to be lonely is not desolate, For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show; I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my alter'd eye. I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, By the old Hall which may be mine no more. Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: Sad havoc Time must with my memory make Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have lov'd, they are Resign'd for ever, or divided far. The world is all before me; I but ask Of Nature that with which she will comply— It is but in her summer's sun to bask, To mingle with the quiet of her sky, To see her gentle face without a mask, And never gaze on it with apathy. She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister—till I look again on thee. I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not; for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun, The earliest—even the only paths for me— Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept. With false Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a name, Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before. And for the future, this world's future may From me demand but little of my care; I have outliv'd myself by many a day, Having surviv'd so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have fill'd a century, Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by. And for the remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless, for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings further. Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound. For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are—I am, even as thou art— Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart, From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwin'd—let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last!

My sister knew before i did what i needed she showed up with food she didn't ask questions that's what a sister does