Four Poems by Maggie Smith

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Found in Willow Springs 83

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POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE FROM BASHO

 

The moon is brighter since the barn burned.

And by burned I mean to the bones—

the rafters on the ground a whale’s ribcage.

A barn is mostly kindling. No wonder

it went up like that—whoosh. Or should I

question my perception? As the therapist

tells me, look for evidence to support

the feeling. One minute, beams. The next,

smoke. Didn’t my husband say, hardly

to me at all, it was a long time coming?

In this still-smoldering field, I am looking

for evidence. How can something stand

for years, and then—? Just like that?

Where the roof was, all this night.

 

 

for my next trick

 

Where was I, she asks,

before I was in your body?

 —What was I?

 

You were nowhere,

I tell her, nothing.

 

Then where do we go

next? She presses.

Keeps pressing: Back

 

to nothing?

If I could believe

 

I’ll see her again,

waking from whatever

this world is into

 

another world,

I would—

 

even if the ending

is so tidy, it spoils

the whole story.

 

We can’t talk

about birth without

 

talking about death,

can’t talk about death

without talking

about separation,

that thick black

 

redaction.

Do I tell her we end

like a book—the end?

 

That when we’re gone,

we’re gone, too gone

 

to miss or even

remember each other?

She knows

 

what vanish means.

Pretending

 

to do magic,

she says it as a verb:

For my next trick,

 

I’ll vanish you.

I tell her the stars

 

are the exception—

burnt out but still lit.

No, not ghosts,

 

not exactly. Nothing

to be scared of.

 

 

how to build a fire

 

 

First ask yourself        Why fire

 

in the twenty-first century      Is it serving

 

some primal need        drawing you closer

 

to the earth      to what you think of

 

as God            to what you think of

 

as ancestors     as if you know anything

 

about ancestors                      Ask yourself

 

what you need for kindling and flame

 

Do you empty your son’s pockets

 

for stones        for one you can spark

 

against another                      Do you saw

 

a stick against its brother        Do you see

 

God when you tilt a shard of mirror

 

above a nest of your shorn hair

 

 

three thoughts after crossing nameless creek

 

1.

The student who told you

her mother didn’t name her for days.

For more than a week, everyone

called her Baby.

 

2.

Your daughter, who now sees

the labeled world: For sale. Open. Stop.

Even Hell Is Real. It’s love/

hate, reading being automatic.

Seeing a thing and

—immediately, without consent—

knowing it.

 

3.

Once, as a child, you tried to imagine

nothing—tried like hell to empty

your mind’s shameful hoard.

You stayed awake for days.

But each time you had it,

you labeled it—nothing

and that was something,

and you had to start again.

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