Poetry

Ladle is asked
How it maintains such a good attitude
When its ability to reach into the abundance of life
Is so dependent upon the agency of others
It’s just what keeps happening to me, ladle says,
I’m always being utilized
Asked to dip into these wonderful substances
Get filled to overflowing
Lifted up, even tilted
I love being tilted and used
Love serving my masters and my purpose
Why even in my states of rest
I am happy being ladle,
Knowing I will be used again,
Will feel vast pleasure again,
When you are a ladle
Someone always comes around
Saying, “I need a ladle.”
Nobody’s going to use you as a hammer
When you’re a ladle
And you can trust you’ll be put to good use.
Even if you’re a malformed ladle
If you’ve been bent or twisted
Or rendered less perfect in shape
You will be used,
Although perhaps less frequently,
Unless you’re the only ladle around,
Which isn’t a bad thing,
But can raise serious doubts
About whether it is you they love.
But if you maintain a desire to be of use
You will be used
That’s all I can tell you
Sometimes deformations
Are what make you attractive
Show you’ve been of long and steady service
Draw to you the ones you need
Who lift you up
Dip you in
Wash you
Use you, and leave you
spent and cleansed.

The beach plums

Enjoy the dunes

High winds

Blowing sands

Salt

The company of poison ivy

And everyone who uses them

Native American

Pilgrim

Cape Codder

Tourist.

The plums flourish on lands

First purchased from sachems

Who never owned them –

Not a tree or a dune –

For four coats

Three axes

A day’s plowing with a team of oxen.

Land that has seen grazing

And whaling

Fishing and fencing

Bogs and berries.

Land that remembers the Wampanoag

Here for but three thousand years

As do we who fill our pails

Boil the plums

Separate seed from fruit

Squeeze the beach plum flesh

Extract its essence

As we squeeze each other

The sweet juices we cook

In anaerobic jars

To make the jam

To smell the sweetness

The sweat

The sour

The desirable

To lick our fingers

And in memory

To preserve it all.

In further preparation for my grand exit
I dispose of material things
That once had value to me
And still do
A seventy-year-old
4 x 7 weathered fake-leather
Zippered autograph book
From public school 95
In the Bronx
An archeological time capsule
From the first half
Of the last century
Having survived wars, moves, and fires
Filled with empty limerick poems
from prepubescent classmates
comprised of red rose and blue violet couplets
And the hearty toast from my eighth grade English teacher,
Who like my mother thought
I had the potential to better conjugate verbs if only I paid attention.

I dispose now of high school trivia:
A senior pin.
The 1958 yearbook.
It is inconceivable anyone might care about this detritus
Rather it is in the mind
Where anything of substance remains
and there is no need to throw any of that away
As if one could.
I wrote my first poem
On assignment in freshman English
And I know the words to that poem verbatim
Sixty-eight years later
Worth exactly nothing o’er these decades
Except to me.
That I now throw into the fire. 

I cast away a trove of my uncle’s World War II bounty

Military orders handwritten on parchment

Photographs of shamed collaborator women

  being paraded naked down the screaming streets

Next to letters of commendation

Nazi medals

Sewing kits. Bootie.

Jingoism and heroism on display.

With old correspondence

And letters from abroad.

He was in the psychological warfare unit,

Aide and driver to the Unit Commander.

I so admired the smell of his shaving cream

And cigarette smoke

mixed with the aroma of his morning

ablutions and eliminations

There

Next to the jeep

With the beautiful French women

Never married

Nor producer of offspring.

Who care that he served with valor

This unknown soldier

Absolutely anonymous

To all but me and a few cousins

One who turned a starter postage stamp collection

Into books upon books filled with cancelled postage stamps

Worth exactly nothing these decades later

Except to me

That I now throw into the fire.

Whispering among the gods
Sounds like the buzzing of a beehive,
like tides,
like Bach.
There is an urgency to godly whispering
To the call to the colors
To the nectar.

Whispering with the gods
I noticed the god within me
And jarred by this recognition
I sought my own meaning
among the gods.

After news of the tragedy arrived
The Tibetan prayer flags waved in the breeze
As they always do
And a hummingbird came to hover
Inches from my face
Reminding me – as if I needed further evidence –
of the need to prepare
for the long journey
by feeding on the sweetness of life
whenever and wherever we can,
always aware,
like the hummingbird,
that we are mere hours from starvation or death,
grateful we can store enough energy  
to respond when our houses need cleaning
and when it is time to move on.
The fact is that doors have closed,
and will close.
The question is,
where will we find the strength
to explore the doors now opened.

Long ago, perhaps yesterday
Her visit exposes the soft underbelly
of the large, terrified animal
who rolls over on his back
like an infant in a crib
to let her rub him.
Long ago,
perhaps yesterday.
A man still at war
with himself,
his feelings,
neediness,
his country.
This close to losing
and this close to winning.
Maybe even having won.
Either way it’s a gift to be playing
and a privilege to be sharing

She loved the sea

to sail on skin of ocean

to skid the surface

in quiet ripples

moving with aid of wind

no fish or bird

more buoyant.

He loved the dark of woods
trees young and old
to bend or lean upon
rustle of leaves
hint of other creatures
of mystery
without horizon.

She liked the silence

solitude

the play of elements

the heart of sun

colors brightened

fall of day

a peaceful harbor

to lie upon.

He liked the beach

stone and shell

the warmth of sand

beneath his feet

connected from solid to solid

to float and not to sink

to drift but not to drown.

As tide and shore

they lost their sense

of edges and beginnings

as each the other touched.

Not ship nor gull

they glide and wait

willow to starboard, mate.

B R Taub – June 1980

I go to baggage claim a few days early

To wait for you

I check the message board

But your day of arrival

Is not yet listed

Although your flight number appears

So I practice

My song of meeting and greeting.

A vast array of old

And sculpted

Infantile and exhausted

Gather at the carousel

To listen to the music

And watch the spinning containers

In all their many mesmerizing shapes and colors.

People reunite with their belongings

Loved ones come to greet them

Anxiety is resolved

Hope and trust renewed

I witness this

Strangers lifting stranger’s luggage

Faces scanned

In the hopes of recognition

And look for you

But no one is as beautiful

And no one runs to greet me

So I study well how it is done

What happens to the eyes

When luggage or a loved one is recognized

The use of the hands

In waving and greeting

In pointing and grasping

How lips part and join

The sight of folks leaving together

A sense of mission accomplished

And lives to be lived

Good things happen at baggage claim

I have witnessed this

And in that joy

I await you.