Selected Poems by Mary Sue Koeppel
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The Assignment
After the glass and the gas,
the ambulances and the bystanders,
only a plastic, green garbage bag.
In it someone had tossed the shoes.
They'd been driving home for Easter,
watching for white dogwood trees,
two teens in a back seat,
their mom and dad up front.
Around a curve a drunken woman
giggled, jiggled when he tickled;
she fought him off and dared him.
In court they called it playing chicken
in a car that split my brother's car in two.
My mother called. Four planes later I was home.
Easter turkey still sat in the oven dry.
Trilliums bloomed in snow along the picket fence.
Neighbors brought the garbage bag,
a crumpled Easter basket smelling of gasoline,
a broken suitcase of blood-dyed clothes.
"Wash the clothes," my mother said.
"They'll need their Easter best.
And match their shoes."
I took the plastic bag, trembled
at the leather, colors, sizes, smell -
white high heels, brown high heels,
tan suede rubber soles,
size thirteen oxfords, half a lace.
Once I'd given students an assignment:
choose shoes for Shakespeare's characters.
"Juliet--in slippers, clogs, or spikes?" I asked.
"Romeo?" "Adidas," they said.
"Lear on the heath?" "Boots by L. L. Bean."
"Rosencranz and Guildenstern?" "Wingtips
black and blue."
Now from a bag, I had to choose.
We carried six matched shoes
to the funeral home. The two shoes left
I polished, held close, tried
to reconfirm the meanings in the choice.
"No," said Carmen white on her bed,
"these are my mother's,
where are mine?"
"She's wearing yours," I said;
"she's warm beneath the snow."
From In the Library of Silences, Poems of Loss by Mary Sue Koeppel, Rhiannon Press, 2001
Meditation
Wise men do not grieve
having discarded sorrow.
Dhammapada
Sorrow is to be discarded,
not thrown out like garbage,
not fingered or sorted
or given to the less fortunate,
but discarded like old cells,
like flakes of skin in the shower,
discarded like long hair
wound through a pointed comb.
A part that is not a part
any more is not grieved.
Wise ones neither mourn,
nor weep, nor squint in pain,
but sit in sacred stillness.
Peace is the quiet discarding.
From In the Library of Silences, Poems of Loss by Mary Sue Koeppel, Rhiannon Press, 2001
Reprinted in American Zen: a Gathering of Poets
Translated into Spanish and published on http://www.maestroeckhart.org/content/la-asociaci%C3%B3n-maestro-eckhart
Meditacion
No se lamentan los sabios
descartan las penas
Dhammapada
La pena hay que descartarla
no hay que echarla a la basura,
no hay que toquetearla ni clasificarla,
tampoco dársela a los menos afortunados,
hay que descartarla como las células viejas
como las escamas de la piel en la ducha,
descartarla como el largo cabello
prendido en un peine puntiagudo.
Una parte que no es parte
no puede apenarnos de nuevas.
No se lamentan los sabios,
no lloran, no miran con ojos dolientes,
se sientan en una quietud sagrada,
la paz es...descartar tranquilamente.
Traducción: Jose M. Prieto, Marzo 2011, Asociacion Maestro Eckhart, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
Ode to a Zucchini
After "Ode to an Onion" by Pablo Neruda
Zucchini,
long tube,
inside the black loam
inside the hillock
you appeared, a tiny shoot,
like a secret spot in a mouth
worried by earth's probing tongue.
Zucchini,
long tube,
your texture formed
inch by inch
as stem expanded from flower
and, in the hiding place of leaves,
you grew your inner seeds.
You poked out
into the sun,
like the manhood of Zeus
exploring,
seeking,
making fertile.
No breast of Aphrodite
in you.
You are the seed of Zeus.
You are destined to be
bread of the vegetarian,
the damp,
heavy bread
laden
with nuts.
Diced, you enter the cooking pot
generously melding
tomato and onion and corn.
You sooth the hungry
who need strength.
Plant of the poor,
more useful
than the showy pumpkin,
your brother.
We learned to taste you
the first time
with trepidation.
We praise you now,
son of Zeus,
delicious one.
From Kalliope, a Journal of Women's Literature and Art. 30th Anniversary Edition, Vol. XXX, No. 1, 2008
When the House Is Empty of People and Ghosts,
find the holds,
the little outcroppings you can grip.
Place your feet, one at a time, and then
push yourself in, higher and further,
and you will find the place
where you are desire and sense,
where your feet and elbows
disappear and your breath is still.
There you can make stories.
When you climb back down,
hands and feet scraping stones,
your stories will be on your back,
heavy or light.
Where your talk is full silence,
you leave markings, and if not afraid,
you can climb again, maybe tomorrow.
From Between the Bones, Poems by Mary Sue Koeppel. Canopic Publishing, 2005
December
When snow falls delicately,
like a dusting of meows
from a cat trying to get attention
but not making herself intrusive,
the human heart beats quietly,
like a steady, running purr
or the flutter of a set of
ripples on a smooth painting.
Still. There is no sound to that kind
of falling, no fright, only
gentle lapping, a little lifting,
and quiet, quiet respect.
From In the Library of Silences: Poems of Loss by Mary Sue Koeppel. Rhiannon Press, 2001
While the Wolf Walks the Edge of the Woods
someone, turning in sleep
asks who
and not expecting an answer,
turns again, and
hearing the bell clap
knows it is early, but
the sanga meets before
sun or light or warmth
The nuns kowtow
to the floor and one
wonders if they bow
to Buddha or the light
beginning to streak
through the bamboo curtain
When the light reaches
the eyelids, the sight
says open and the eye
sees the grass bending
against the palmetto
and the palmetto bending
with the robin singing
and the robin bending
to the northeaster and
the whole zangha just
chanting to the rhythm
of the gong Enough
it is enough it is
From Between the Bones, Poems by Mary Sue Koeppel. Canopic Publishing, 2005
Andante
We are not a ripping scherzo,
not allegro of vibrating dance,
certainly not presto crescendo.
No, you and I are andante -
lingering over espresso and
creamed strawberries at dusk,
andante, sometimes tremolo,
in soft, swallow-butterfly swoops,
con brio, sweet on the tongue.
From Between the Bones, Poems by Mary Sue Koeppel. Canopic Publishing, 2005
The Spine-Tailed Dog, Prowling
You've tried to strangle the spine-tailed dog
prowling since the man snapping his leather strap
streaked your young buttocks, your thighs.
You cannot squelch your fears--
fear ants will unflesh you, undertows grab you,
termites eat down your home.
You want to believe you can belly laugh,
shake stomach muscles raw.
You want resolute languor, comfort, joy.
Want unadulterated joy.
You imagine joy's tastes-- sweet Bing cherries
rolled on tongues, shared, swallowed.
Sweet purple cherries squashed on a water bed
coating breasts, toes, belly.
Yet the spine-tailed dog
jams his wet nose behind your purple knees,
under you bare neck. How will you
erase stains from your skin?
Before work. Tomorrow.
Even elbow creases will need bleaching.
From Between the Bones, Poems by Mary Sue Koeppel
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