orfeascradle.bravehost.com

(Please savor this page by scrolling a-l-l the way down....)

Soaring

My sorrows were following us like crows

up the alpine highway out of Salzburg;

Like carrion-eating birds they followed us

We drove into a parking lot to take our rest

where there was a cathedral,

spires jutting up against the vast diamond of the mountain

Where ruts like the veins in a chunk of quartz

that could be small roads or graves

clefts in the mountain hiding the bones

of nuns freefalling from a convent window

Gleamed, glistened with the hardened snows of summer

I was gravid and blushing from the wine I had sipped

sitting in the back of our van,

brushing the veil back, where my old love

stood on a stage in my mind intoning my sins

And then it came,

blazing from the cathedral like the end of the world

Bach, thundrous and joyous, resounding

from peak to peak:

A vainglorious swan arose within me

Winging its way upward

even as I walked in the graveyard, mute,

A listener, a traveler, with a diffident hand

pinching back the roses covering someone weeping

on a marble bas relief.

Jenne' Andrews

April 2, 2008

The remarkable organ at Zirl....

my favorite poem on longing, joyously freeing to write (please scroll atwdtp to see attendant art)...

Otello Returns As Desire to Claim His Poet

Tonight from the plains, a wind

Comes into the garden: it is the wind

That carries pollen, the promise of kisses

Flower to flower;

One rose wants to open; another is bitten off

By something feral, at dusk;

I walk along the path, humming old Spanish songs

From the New Mexico years, carry a candle

Out to the cherry tree, a glass of cider,

The branches lean down over the dreaming twilight

And the first stars

And then, into the garden, steps

Desire, in his long cloak,

His deceptively gentle footfall;

He too is humming, lines from Verdi, Puccini.

He is a shape in the darkness,

A semblance, a Moor, half-sinister.

It seems we know each other well.

I have not wanted him to visit this night—

A long hot day, thinking of practical things

At work on a book, pinching back the ivy.

As I say, he knows me too well; he steps to the back

Of the chair where I sit, and bends down

To kiss my neck.

Electricity travels down my spine. Yearning

Stirs in the belly, nerves

Waken where they wake, yes

The corners of the mouth, and between the thighs.

He is persistent, patient, like night itself.

He lurks in the shadows;

I pretend he is not there for as long as I can

Before I go in, light candles, put on jazz

And a filmy gown, turn back the quilt,

Take my Victorian grandmother’s photograph off the wall,

Should we find ourselves in that room.

But he loiters, whistling, by the gate, feigning indifference.

I go back out to where I was, under the wings of the cherry tree,

As if I am alone, I sit down,

Slide out of my underwear and kick off my sandals.

A moon, then—orange, full of honey, on the horizon;

He takes off his cloak,

And kneels down on the damp grass.

His is an ageless face, half-discernible in the darkness.

Better not to know who this is

Who takes me then, drinking my kisses,

Tearing off my gown, bracing my feet

On his shoulders,

Stifling my cries of joy

Teasing me with long and tapered fingers.

After midnight, jazz still on the stereo

I wake, and go out to the garden

Remembering that something took place

In the deep summer night,

That I was known and devoured

Plundered, and fed.

Afflicted by such tender, ephemeral

And proficient touch

As to be doomed to be hungry forever.

jenne' andrews 06