Lamentation at a Son’s First Novel
(Goodbye to the Hundred Acre Wood)
I wasn’t prepared
For your perfunctory wave
As you passed me by
Eyes sweeping tabletops and empty chairs
Searching with singular focus for
Your book.
Your book!
Yesterday
Your book
Was what you brought
To me
To read.
Yesterday
I
Was introducing
You
To a world
I
Loved.
Yesterday
We walked along
A country lane
Breathing warm, easy air
You telling me your thoughts about God
I reveling in a
Christopher Robin
Moment.
Yesterday
I was blind
To the road I walked
Leading you
Toward
Today.
Mary Davis Biddle
Mirage
Driving between rows
Of winter stubble …
A massive, brown figure
Is announced
In the field on my right.
It’s the size of a small bear–
Perhaps a fugitive cow?
The rural rorschach
Calls to me,
Playing with my
Longing for
Something significant to
Rise out of the ancient
Soil and claim
Kinship with me.
As the principal
Of an imagined ballet
Its form
Segues fluidly from
Animate to mechanical
Being.
Now,
The closer I’m drawn
Toward the figure,
The more resistant
I am
To see
The flat,
Objective truth:
A rusty metal drum
From my neighbor’s
Fire pit
Has blown
Across the road
And into the field.
Mary Davis Biddle
Plenty of Light
Before my day’s work
The first light comes
In quiet coolness
Through the southern window,
Illuminating in grey the sky
Behind leafless trees
At the near horizon.
Limbs spread
About halfway toward open palm,
Fingertips up,
They stand patiently behind
The plum thicket, still a black mass
Without distinction of branches or
Declaration of which come
From which set of roots.
After breakfast
In full morning sunshine,
Just west of the plums,
A dusting of snow
Surrounds a seven-foot pine
Beneath a pale blue sky.
Closer to my window
Individual blades of grass,
Gleaming with melted snow,
Claim their right to
The spotlight of my gaze.
At dusk,
Returning to my seat,
I know the air and soil reverberate
With bird songs,
A passing car,
The dog’s meandering path
Where she notarized
Chipmunk trash and the boys’
Footsteps to the school bus.
My window darkens now
After time spent
Here and away,
Though outside there is still
Plenty of light.
Mary Davis Biddle
Preparing for Fruit
In the orchard for the first time
Fresh from viewing a training film
Supplied by the co-op extension
She prunes last year’s superfluous growth.
Exhilarated by her daring to learn-and-do
She feels like a medical student
Cutting into a patient for the first time.
Those branches asserted their right to grow
Through last summer’s muggy, hot haze.
Stretching determinedly toward sunlight,
They flaunted their energetic talent
Demurely shaping positive and negative space.
Glibly she denies their ambition, pursuing
Her vision of fruit – autumn’s reward.
She recites her mantra, “Once I’m sure
I’ve gone too far, that will be enough” but
Dark humor from the tilting edge
Provides no balm for ignorance.
She cuts a little more, blind to the risk of
Open wounds at the stubs of branches
Begging all assailants enter.
When finally she’s worn out, chaff of a
Novice’s blade lies scattered across the ground.
Limbs vibrant with sap this morning
Are discarded leftovers by noon.
They’ll be hauled to the burn pile at evening,
Another adventure if she dares. She thinks
She will leave the fire for another day.
Mary Davis Biddle with thanks to Oleta Davis Miller
Voices Found
Women gather strength into wicker baskets
Heaving to a free hip
A basket filled with
Voices
Telling stories
Of climbing crabapple trees
Pulling knees toward searching hands
Boosting core weight freely over
Freckled taupe bark
Voices
Woven from a brown-eyed gaze
Swinging skyward to
Dutch elms
Escorting pockets of light
Through pendulum leaf mazes
Voices
Whispered among spider webs in windows
Speaking private names that
Bridge two beings
Unconsciously and completely
Voices
Remembered though
Long hidden under layers of
Doubt and fear
Voices
Heard in a chorus of sisters
Singing, Listening, Singing
Voices found
Women gather strength
Mary Davis Biddle
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