I'm going to read three more poems.
One is a little longer than the others.
The first one is called January.
Three clear days and then a sudden storm.
Cedar waxwings, having feasted on the pyracantha,
perch in the yard on an offended pine and face
into the slanting rain.
I think they are a little drunk.
I was making this gathering which pleased me, the discarded
Christmas tree, the waxwings which always pass through about
this time of year in the first January storm
as if I had finally defined a California season when Rachel
came down the walk and went into the house.
I typed it out--
The birds giddy with Janus, the two-faced god--
and then went in to say hello.
What I saw was a haiku.
Two women sitting at the kitchen table,
muted light on a rainy morning.
One has car keys in her hand.
I was surprised by two feelings at once.
One was a memory, the other a memory trace.
The memory called up I think by a glimpse
of Rachel's sculpted profile against the cypresses
outside the window just before she turned to greet me.
I thought of the day 12 years ago in early summer.
Rachel had just had an abortion and we all went for a walk
in San Francisco near the Bay.
Everything was in bloom and we were
being conscientiously cheerful, young really
not knowing what form there might be for such an occasion
or in fact what occasion it was.
And Rachel in profile talking casually, the bay behind her
looked radiant with grief.
Memory trace had to do with car keys and two women
in a kitchen.
Someone was visiting my mother.
It was a rainy day.
So I was inside.
Her friend, as adults will, to signal that they are not
going to take too much of your time, had car keys in her hand.
Between Rachel and Earlene, there
were three oranges in the basket on the table.
And I had a sweet dizzying sensation
that the color was circulating among them in a dance.
Play the wedding music slow.
Lovers have a place to go.
Their dancing bones will have to grow more gentle and uneasy.
The heart is what we eat with almond blossoms
bitter to the tongue.
The hair of tulips in the softening spring.
Rachel is looking for a house.
A realtor had just shown her one.
Looking at the new house, she loved
the old one, especially the green of the garden,
looking out on the garden.
The old house had drawbacks long rehearsed.
And the new one with its cedar shingle and view
didn't feel right.
It was so anonymous and perfect.
It didn't have the green secrecy of the garden or the apple tree
to tie Claire's swing to.
Earlene is asking questions.
trying to help.
A few minutes later when I pass through again
they are laughing at the comedy in the business of trying
to sort through mutually exclusive alternatives in which
figures some tacit imagination of contentment from which life
wants to flower.
I hate that old house, Barbara is saying.
I hate that old house, Rachel is saying, laughing,
tears in her eyes.
I find myself looking at their skin, the coloring
and the first relaxation of the tautness of the sleeker
skin of the young, the casual beauty and normality
of that first softening.
The rain has stopped, no birds but light.
the white of Shasta daisies and two red geraniums
against the fence, and the dark brown of wet wood
glistening a little as it dries.