If it hadn't been for Terry I wouldn't be here. I took a class from Terry many years ago, maybe 10 years ago, when my daughter was little, about this little.
And it was so difficult being a mother in my 50s that I wasn't sure I could continue. But Terry said, just come to class. All you have to do is come to class.
And I did. And she encouraged me and it's been heaven ever since really. So I'm delighted to read here today. It's perfect that this is a seed bank and my book is following hay.
The book was inspired, I think, by many things. One is the death of my favorite cousin, a boy who was older, a year older than me.
Also, by all the terrible things that happened in our world, I wanted to write about what's comforting and what I'm most attached to, which has to do with all the rituals related to farm and family in my past.
I'm going to read two poems from this book today and then I'm going to read some of my newer work. Can you hear me all right? No.
So I'll try to talk louder. Is that better? I usually have a mic so I don't know how to do this. Here we go.
I'm going to read the lead poem for the book, which the poem is called Following Hay. I ride behind hay. The wagon goes fast. Bales touch the trees.
Clip foliage. Bits of hay dust and flower flit down. Spiral toward the ground. Muzzy up my view. Long bales of oats. Stack seven high. Not too loose. Not tight. Oat golden.
Yesterday's hay was smaller, alfalfa, younger, tighter, a checkerboard of green, then yellow, straw and caramel slopped together.
Chillable. I want to eat the camel kind for lunch, for dinner, with milk. Hay on trucks, hay in barns, in fields before it is mown, during its harvest, after it lies in piles or old fashioned haystacks.
Watching Wally on the haybind, the combine, walking beside John on the new baler, shooting round bales like babies out the back.
I've spent summers watching Hay's movement into barns. Is it too wet? Too wet to mow? How long will it take when the baler breaks down?
The radiance on John's face when he fixes her and heads out to mow. Six o'clock at night, late June, sun on his face. The gathering up.
I like to pitch hay. Lift bales.
Alan took me to the barn when we were twelve. We sat on the hay. Fresh enough to smell all day.
It poked through my pants. He told me about his friends, what boys think about.
He showed me hand signs that mean things to boys. He said, you have beautiful shoulders. I love where they meet your neck.
He never asked for more than this in the hay. It rained. The barn stayed warm from hay, the animals, and us.
I wanted to read this other poem because it's about Petaluma. Do any of you know where the Petaluma High School track is over that away?
I sometimes walk or run there. And it could be any track. It could be anywhere. But I'm not sure that all of this could happen anywhere at Petaluma.
Covered buttons. Sensible lace up shoes, black. Against pearl stockings that match her swept up hair.
She must be eighty-five in a billowing white dress with orange poppies.
She walks briskly around, me and sneakers behind her, and the entire blue-suited fire department behind us.
The older large men joke about the young bucks, and young men run ahead of us all.
Shirts off, backs glisten, mouths boast as they try to outrun each other.
They fly without effort by the older citizens of our town, who creep arm in arm along the outside edge near the bushes and fencing.
Muscle and certainty that life will be like this. A competition they will always win.
Firm, powerful pushing from brown ground through air. They call her ma'am and say good day to me.
Tip their hands and salute to their captain. And for a moment, I believe what they believe.
Love all our legs lunging in the same direction. Love us all.
This poem is a new one, and it's written in honor of Susan Adams, one of our poets and painters who died two years ago.
And I miss her. I wrote this about a year ago.
The title is from one of her paintings called Red Tulips for Susan Adams.
A rising painter, you sold me your Zinnia's watercolor, small petals shining in a bunch.
We ran into each other by chance for ten years, an uncommon friendship.
At the post office on 4th, the market, art trails openings.
Talking fast, your hair leaping. Your brush knew the full palette, still life from your home, wild abstractions and primary colors.
After your husband's death, the gray, misted paintings, people walking away, rain.
Then modern jazz, music singing across canvas, cobalt blues.
You and your white beaded dress at the Pelican Gallery, telling buyers how glad they will be to have your work.
I bought a painting when I could. Juliet roses for my daughter Juliet's room, receding road through Aspen.
Your garden hat in red tulips splashes my walls.
You sifted through prints as if there weren't enough time, saying beauty had to be part of each day.
A year ago we met by chance at Redwood Radiology. You wanted me to feel your lump.
You died on Monday. I keep walking, room to room.
I wrote this poem shortly after the death of Nelson Mandela.
It's called Bonnie.
When I think of Nelson Mandela, I see Bonnie Rogers sitting next to me in McIntyre's school second grade.
Her face the color of strong coffee with a lot of cream, smiling bigger than the Susquehanna.
Her freckles on her nose just like his.
She taught me to suck my arm on the inside of my elbow. It made a red mark.
You'll both get cancer, her grandma said.
I took her home from school where my mother wouldn't speak to me the entire afternoon.
Snapped at us both in the kitchen, looked at me with hard slate eyes like the witch in snow white.
When Bonnie left, my mother slapped me down, told me never bring that pickin' innie here ever again.
Why? Because she's poor. We're poor too.
I told Bonnie the next day that my mother wouldn't let her come home with me anymore.
Bonnie and her cousin Irene called me a fool.
When Nelson Mandela got out of prison and stood with his arms outstretched around all of Africa,
I hoped Bonnie was watching.
And when he died last week, I imagined both of us crying for all the people who didn't get to know each other.
Let's see. I think I should just read one more.
And as Beverly started with a poem about her daughter, I will end with a poem for my daughter.
It's called Invitation to the Dance.
Where's young man asked you to dance?
May he sweep his arm around you.
Find that small spot on your back where your strong muscles wait, while his eyes find yours.
May he not ask or demand, but offer a silent drinking in of your beauty.
May he lift his left hand in the air. I'm sorry.
Open to hold yours and hold it firm, but not tight.
Then lead you with the slightest pressure in his hands and his reaching right leg.
Step, step, step.
May you hear the strings play beyond you, your gowns wave and swish on the turns.
May you let your legs match his stride or slow it a bit with your own.
All of it will flow in time.
Not everyone knows how to dance.
Not all men know how to lead, nor women permit it.
Where you become the rhythm, the swishing turns, the music itself.
May he press you closer to take you the length of the wooden floor.
Brush near the long drapes until you are filled with music and home.
Thank you.
