Hobble Creek Review
| Kelly Madigan |
For Hollie, Who Never Believed the Sun was a Star
We are at the edge of the city, squatting in a stranger’s field
because the sun has thrown off a flare, and we know
this stirs the coals of the night sky.
It’s a gamble, sometimes nothing but the blades
of windmills rumbling, one night the meadowlark
singing from a post, but other nights
we watch the backlit paint pool in the northern sky
purple, blue, yellow. I know the science
here, the solar wind, the magnetic particles,
but when the sky boils up in color
I have to mull it over, wonder if it is a grace
or indictment, knowing I am assigning meaning
where there may be none. Still, in the Middle Ages
these lights were believed to be signs from God,
and I am bowed down in this soybean field
ready for a benediction, and equally prepared
for the end times, the wrath of tsunami
trumpeting over these sandhills, a mass ascension,
or a signal that we should go below, live off
the canned food and bottled water
for that protracted time of change. When blue light
pillows itself in the sky I want to cover my eyes
though this is what we came for, an ocean
of unusual light, and maybe every visitation
is like this, the kind of thing we peek at
through our fingers as they are clasped
to our eyes, I don’t want to see but I do.
So I come to this field at night
when there has been a solar flare
because I want to know, I am asking to see,
and if no man or woman can illuminate
this packaged life for me, I turn to whatever is handy,
berries in my rolled shirt, the weight of my hands
at my hips, or the textured paper of maps,
and ask for more to be revealed. And in this darkness
(if we are patient) a crescendo of hue and light
will help us strip the noise down
to peace or trouble, and I,
having tired of trouble, choose peace.
Melodica
Stink of yellow under the foot
and overhead two clouds combine.
Returning is never easy;
the old fissures crack the hasty patch.
The sun, that baby of the family,
pries the down from our layers
and we can’t help but peel apart,
tea buds opening in the circle
of a glass jar. Peony, for stamina.
Jasmine for scent.
We have to run to lift
each tied kite, an effort
slowed by winter’s somber blood
still fraudulent and gummy
in our fingers, our calves.
Movement itself answers
all of the questions, a string playing
itself out between here and there,
a one word aerial prayer
for more days, a nettle balm
against our luckless shins,
a mark of ash across our foreheads.
If the sun king is fishing for souls
let him meet the river bird
who breaks under the water’s dark Fedora
and drags up something silver,
something still alive and straining,
and when April’s church bells ring
we can all feast on the multiplying
offering, the green and blue poultice
held close to our skin, the eye
darting to gather from all corners.
Flinch If You Must
Remember when you said
time doesn’t exist? Just an organizational
platform for understanding experience?
And my life a thin-stemmed flower
Christ within me Christ without
And the music, the cello
and voice, children chanting
all the names of God
Thinking I had lost my way
I awaken in Rumi’s field,
or in the branches of the fig tree of Siddhartha.
There, spirit moves in and through, tempering.
Oh holiest of ghosts, rambling with me,
fingers on the keys, the host of words
streams into the room until I lie down
on the wooden floor – back of the head,
shoulder blades, hips, soles of the feet,
and let the body be a collector, a tree fallen
crossways in the stream.
Despair tells you stories about time
but she is a liar,
and though she drugs you with images
and slams her gavel furiously, don’t buy it.
Can you stand still in this place
no matter? Flinch if you must
but stay, say this is what it is like
to be miserable or this
is what it is like to be afraid.
Keep standing there. If you bolt,
and you will, coax yourself back
and begin the standing again.
It will be a long night.
You will think you cannot bear it.
There is a moment within the chrysalis
in which the tiny being has turned entirely to gel.
I have unearthed all my dead.
I have clattered around the boneyard,
my skirts grazing the ground. The losses
cannot be stemmed. Yes, there are more to come.
But in this singular morning,
blackbirds. The scent of nutmeg.
What a wonder, the heart no longer beating
but leaping. Staying alive.
We are at the edge of the city, squatting in a stranger’s field
because the sun has thrown off a flare, and we know
this stirs the coals of the night sky.
It’s a gamble, sometimes nothing but the blades
of windmills rumbling, one night the meadowlark
singing from a post, but other nights
we watch the backlit paint pool in the northern sky
purple, blue, yellow. I know the science
here, the solar wind, the magnetic particles,
but when the sky boils up in color
I have to mull it over, wonder if it is a grace
or indictment, knowing I am assigning meaning
where there may be none. Still, in the Middle Ages
these lights were believed to be signs from God,
and I am bowed down in this soybean field
ready for a benediction, and equally prepared
for the end times, the wrath of tsunami
trumpeting over these sandhills, a mass ascension,
or a signal that we should go below, live off
the canned food and bottled water
for that protracted time of change. When blue light
pillows itself in the sky I want to cover my eyes
though this is what we came for, an ocean
of unusual light, and maybe every visitation
is like this, the kind of thing we peek at
through our fingers as they are clasped
to our eyes, I don’t want to see but I do.
So I come to this field at night
when there has been a solar flare
because I want to know, I am asking to see,
and if no man or woman can illuminate
this packaged life for me, I turn to whatever is handy,
berries in my rolled shirt, the weight of my hands
at my hips, or the textured paper of maps,
and ask for more to be revealed. And in this darkness
(if we are patient) a crescendo of hue and light
will help us strip the noise down
to peace or trouble, and I,
having tired of trouble, choose peace.
Melodica
Stink of yellow under the foot
and overhead two clouds combine.
Returning is never easy;
the old fissures crack the hasty patch.
The sun, that baby of the family,
pries the down from our layers
and we can’t help but peel apart,
tea buds opening in the circle
of a glass jar. Peony, for stamina.
Jasmine for scent.
We have to run to lift
each tied kite, an effort
slowed by winter’s somber blood
still fraudulent and gummy
in our fingers, our calves.
Movement itself answers
all of the questions, a string playing
itself out between here and there,
a one word aerial prayer
for more days, a nettle balm
against our luckless shins,
a mark of ash across our foreheads.
If the sun king is fishing for souls
let him meet the river bird
who breaks under the water’s dark Fedora
and drags up something silver,
something still alive and straining,
and when April’s church bells ring
we can all feast on the multiplying
offering, the green and blue poultice
held close to our skin, the eye
darting to gather from all corners.
Flinch If You Must
Remember when you said
time doesn’t exist? Just an organizational
platform for understanding experience?
And my life a thin-stemmed flower
Christ within me Christ without
And the music, the cello
and voice, children chanting
all the names of God
Thinking I had lost my way
I awaken in Rumi’s field,
or in the branches of the fig tree of Siddhartha.
There, spirit moves in and through, tempering.
Oh holiest of ghosts, rambling with me,
fingers on the keys, the host of words
streams into the room until I lie down
on the wooden floor – back of the head,
shoulder blades, hips, soles of the feet,
and let the body be a collector, a tree fallen
crossways in the stream.
Despair tells you stories about time
but she is a liar,
and though she drugs you with images
and slams her gavel furiously, don’t buy it.
Can you stand still in this place
no matter? Flinch if you must
but stay, say this is what it is like
to be miserable or this
is what it is like to be afraid.
Keep standing there. If you bolt,
and you will, coax yourself back
and begin the standing again.
It will be a long night.
You will think you cannot bear it.
There is a moment within the chrysalis
in which the tiny being has turned entirely to gel.
I have unearthed all my dead.
I have clattered around the boneyard,
my skirts grazing the ground. The losses
cannot be stemmed. Yes, there are more to come.
But in this singular morning,
blackbirds. The scent of nutmeg.
What a wonder, the heart no longer beating
but leaping. Staying alive.
Kelly Madigan works as a licensed alcohol and drug counselor in
Nebraska and is the author of Getting Sober: A Practical Guide to
Making it Through the First 30 Days (McGraw-Hill). Her work has
been published in Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse and Barrow Street.
She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
Nebraska and is the author of Getting Sober: A Practical Guide to
Making it Through the First 30 Days (McGraw-Hill). Her work has
been published in Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse and Barrow Street.
She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
| Home / About / Masthead / Submissions / Contact / Current Issue / News / Archives |
