%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Wendy Videlock http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/wendy-videlock <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Wendy Videlock </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2019-01-27T15:25:29-07:00" title="Sunday, January 27, 2019 - 15:25" class="datetime">Sun, 01/27/2019 - 15:25</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/wendy-videlock" data-a2a-title="Wendy Videlock "><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fwendy-videlock&amp;title=Wendy%20Videlock%20"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><div>&#13; <p class="rtecenter"><img alt="Poet: Wendy Videlock" src="/sites/default/files/Wendy_Videlock.jpg" style="width: 392px; height: 481px;" /></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Wendy Videlock is a writer, visual artist, teacher, and a life-long student of the world. She lives on the <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/western-slope">Western Slope</a></strong> of Colorado in <strong>Palisade</strong>. Her books include <em>Nevertheless </em>(San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2011)<em>, Slingshots &amp; Love Plums </em>(San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2015)<em>, The Dark Gnu </em>(San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2013), and a chapbook, <em>What</em><em>’</em><em>s That Supposed to Mean</em> (New York, NY: EXOT Books, 2010).</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Poems</h2>&#13; &#13; <div>&#13; <h3>The Chameleon’s Eye</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>The course of evolution is the story of the soul.<br />&#13;  — CM</p>&#13; &#13; <p>We begin with the chameleon’s eye<br />&#13; or perhaps with a war, and a little girl,<br />&#13; or a single cell, or a single thought,<br />&#13; floating about in a murky and<br />&#13; primordial world.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Let us begin again:<br />&#13; a murky and primordial world<br />&#13; is nonetheless wrought with stars,<br />&#13; turns the old chameleon’s eye,<br />&#13; emboldens the soul,<br />&#13; floating about in a murky and<br />&#13; primordial world.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Trapped like a fish, the soul insists:<br />&#13; thrashing about, floating in,<br />&#13; or clear as a clam in a freshwater pool,<br />&#13; it hardly matters why<br />&#13; or when.  Let us begin again.</p>&#13; </div>&#13; &#13; <div>&#13; <h3>I Have been Counting My Regrets:</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Bacon, Facebook, cigarettes.  <br />&#13; Anger.  <br />&#13; Bluster. <br />&#13; Laziness.  </p>&#13; &#13; <p>Fearfulness. Indifference.    <br />&#13; Lousy lovers, stupid bets.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Things that should not be confessed. <br />&#13; I’m still not dead.  </p>&#13; &#13; <p>It should be said</p>&#13; &#13; <p>I haven’t finished counting yet.  </p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Rattle</em></p>&#13; </div>&#13; &#13; <div>&#13; <h3>Cicada Methuselah Clan</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Underground<br />&#13; they carry on,<br />&#13; but there is sound,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>there’s even song<br />&#13; that carries on<br />&#13; underground.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>It is the sound<br />&#13; of weightedness,<br />&#13; of being bound,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>of bending roots<br />&#13; and being ground<br />&#13; in dark perceptions</p>&#13; &#13; <p>to the sound<br />&#13; of small mouths sipping<br />&#13; underground.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>The Lyric</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Ode to the Slow</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>I’ve an affinity for ghosts, and so,<br />&#13; dwelling as we ghostly do, with the caw<br />&#13; and the hoo and the pinyon moon, where the freeze</p>&#13; &#13; <p>and the thaw and the witness are<br />&#13; together alive and together entombed,<br />&#13; here on the edge of the high desert world</p>&#13; &#13; <p>where all is stone and all is sky,<br />&#13; where an ancient sea was driven forth<br />&#13; to slowly die, here where the ruins and the peaks</p>&#13; &#13; <p>have changed their names to bluff and butte,<br />&#13; here where the <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/search/google/ute">Ute</a></strong> had slowed their pace<br />&#13; to warm their bones and slake the thirst,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>here where the reach of the canyon ends<br />&#13; or begins, as it were —like knowledge, it’s always<br />&#13; a rapture or a bit of a blur— (one could soar on the wing</p>&#13; &#13; <p>or tumble in) here where the rolling stone knows<br />&#13; the floor is only made of sand, and the arc<br />&#13; is the mark of the fallen star, </p>&#13; &#13; <p>here where the ghosts and the slopes are wan<br />&#13; and empty of virtue and of sin, I lower a bridge,<br />&#13; and watch the morning fog roll in.  </p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Said the Sculptor</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Given a freak of vision<br />&#13; and precision</p>&#13; &#13; <p>a person can chip away at a thing<br />&#13; revealing the shape<br />&#13; that lies within:<br />&#13; Pallas Athena, The Thinker,<br />&#13; The Kiss,<br />&#13; The Griffin’s Wing.<br />&#13; Given the inexplicable itch<br />&#13; to chip and chip<br />&#13; away at things, it’s wise to recall<br />&#13; one can also end up<br />&#13; with nothing at all.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Nevertheless</em> (San Jose, CA: Able Muse Press, 2011).</p>&#13; &#13; <h3>The Skin of the Boy who Changed his Destiny</h3>&#13; &#13; <p> — for Sherman Alexie​</p>&#13; &#13; <p>A child is born unto this world.<br />&#13; He brings with him<br />&#13; the skin that has been given him,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the load that has been shifted to him,<br />&#13; and the gift that has been offered him.<br />&#13; From these things the child forms </p>&#13; &#13; <p>early on, a secret code,<br />&#13; that might in fact be better known<br />&#13; as salmon, or bear, or prayer,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>or perhaps a kind of living law. <br />&#13; Heredity claims the shape of the jaw.<br />&#13; Geography shapes the palm of the hand.  </p>&#13; &#13; <p>The dying of the mother tongue<br />&#13; punctuates the northern star,<br />&#13; while all powerful Destiny</p>&#13; &#13; <p>stands in the wings, in awe. <br />&#13; It has been said that all laboring<br />&#13; in service of soul</p>&#13; &#13; <p>is done in the dark,<br />&#13; that nothing’s truer than the autumn leaf,<br />&#13; and the life of the mind</p>&#13; &#13; <p>is best described<br />&#13; as a kind of collective dream.  The skin<br />&#13; of the boy who changed his destiny</p>&#13; &#13; <p>is mottled as the moth, is storied<br />&#13; as the mother tree, and bears the mark<br />&#13; of violence and legacy,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>of tenderness, and melody,<br />&#13; where gift and load and forgiveness form<br />&#13; with destiny,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>a certain solidarity,<br />&#13; and the closest the gifted child comes<br />&#13; to medicine, or remedy. </p>&#13; &#13; <h3><strong>Deconstruction</strong></h3>&#13; &#13; <p>The chickadee is all about truth<br />&#13; The finch is a token. The albatross<br />&#13; is always an omen. The kestrel is mental,<br />&#13; the lark is luck, the grouse is dance,<br />&#13; the goose is quest.  The need for speed<br />&#13; is given the peregrine, and the dove’s<br />&#13; been blessed with the feminine. </p>&#13; &#13; <p>The quail is word, and culpability. <br />&#13; The crane is the dean of poetry.<br />&#13; The swift is the means to agility,<br />&#13; the waxwing mere civility,<br />&#13; the sparrow a nod to working class</p>&#13; &#13; <p>nobility.  The puffin’s the brother<br />&#13; of laughter, and prayer, the starling the student<br />&#13; of Baudelaire. The mockingbird<br />&#13; is the sound of redress, the grackle the uncle<br />&#13; of excess. The flicker is rhythm,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the ostrich is earth, the bluebird a simple<br />&#13; symbol of mirth. The oriole<br />&#13; is the fresh start. The magpie prince<br />&#13; of the dark arts. The swallow is home<br />&#13; and protection -- the vulture the priest</p>&#13; &#13; <p>of purification, the heron a font<br />&#13; of self-reflection.  The swisher belongs<br />&#13; to the faery realm. Resourcefulness<br />&#13; is the cactus wren.  The pheasant is sex,<br />&#13; the chicken is egg, the eagle is free,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the canary the bringer of ecstasy.<br />&#13; The martin is peace.  The stork is release.<br />&#13; The swan is the mother of cool discretion. <br />&#13; The loon is the watery voice of the moon. <br />&#13; The owl’s the keeper of secrets, grief,<br />&#13; and fresh fallen snow, and the crow<br />&#13; has the bones of the ancestral soul.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Hudson Review</em> and reprinted in <em>Best American Poetry</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>Merchant Culture</h3>&#13; &#13; <p><em>What</em><em>’</em><em>s the going rate for a poem these days? </em><br />&#13; — Jack Mueller</p>&#13; &#13; <p>I’ll trade you a drop of snow</p>&#13; &#13; <p>for a lyrical poem,<br />&#13; a parking lot for a muffled moan,<br />&#13; the justice card<br />&#13; for the nine of swords<br />&#13; a soldier’s heart<br />&#13; for a kettle of gold<br />&#13; a kindly verb<br />&#13; for the face of your lord,<br />&#13; a Persian word for an off<br />&#13; chord,<br />&#13; a thousand tears,<br />&#13; a million tomes,<br />&#13; a drop of snow<br />&#13; for a lyrical poem.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Rattle</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>What You’ve Been Given</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>Here lie the things you have been given:<br />&#13; the unabridged and the riven,<br />&#13; the easy breeze, the unforgiven,<br />&#13; the throw-away, the hard wrought,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the speed rail, the train of thought,<br />&#13; the all is calm and all is not,<br />&#13; the darkest spark, the clearest bead,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the soft shoe, the stampede,<br />&#13; the germ of greed, the store of thanks,<br />&#13; the standard flaw, the saving grace,</p>&#13; &#13; <p>the perfect night, the wanting dawn,<br />&#13; the white noise, the black swan,<br />&#13; the aria, the mad song.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Do thy best. <br />&#13; Pass it on.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Hudson Review</em></p>&#13; &#13; <h3>A Lizard in Spanish Valley</h3>&#13; &#13; <p>A lizard does not make a sound,<br />&#13; it has no song,<br />&#13; it does not share my love affairs<br />&#13; with flannel sheets,<br />&#13; bearded men, interlocking<br />&#13; silver rings, the moon,<br />&#13; the sea, or ink.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>But sitting here the afternoon,<br />&#13; I’ve come to believe<br />&#13; we do share a love affair<br />&#13; and a belief —<br />&#13; in wink, blink, stone,<br />&#13; and heat.<br />&#13; Also, air.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>This is not a fable,<br />&#13; nor is it bliss.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Impatience,<br />&#13; remember this.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>First published in <em>Poetry</em> magazine</p>&#13; </div>&#13; </div>&#13; &#13; <p> All poems are Copyright 2018</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- 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http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Veronica Patterson http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/veronica-patterson <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Veronica Patterson</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2019-01-24T13:54:47-07:00" title="Thursday, January 24, 2019 - 13:54" class="datetime">Thu, 01/24/2019 - 13:54</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/veronica-patterson" data-a2a-title="Veronica Patterson"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fveronica-patterson&amp;title=Veronica%20Patterson"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p class="rtecenter"><img alt="Poet: Veronica Patterson" src="/sites/default/files/Veronica_Patterson.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 500px;" /></p> <p>Veronica Patterson’s most recent full-length poetry collection is <em>Sudden White Fan</em> (Cherry Grove Collections, 2018). Others include <em>How to Make a Terrarium</em> (Cleveland State University, 1987), <em>Swan, What Shores?</em> (NYU Press Poetry Prize, 2000), <em>Thresh &amp; Hold </em>(Gell Poetry Prize, 2009), <em>&amp; it had rained</em> (CW Books, 2013), and two chapbooks—<em>This Is the Strange Part</em> (Pudding House, 2002) and <em>Maneuvers: Battle of the Little Bighorn Poems</em> (Finishing Line, 2013). She lives in Loveland, Colorado, where she writes, edits, and teaches creative writing for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.</p> <h2>Poems</h2> <h3>Margaret</h3> <p><em>—for my mother</em></p> <p>Margaret is a field.<br /> In the field goldenrod thickens. Weeds grow so tall<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; that by August you can’t see.<br /> Margaret is a path through the field and she is where<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the path disappears.<br /> Margaret is the house with the red door and the room<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; with the maroon floor, where four children sleep a troubled sleep.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When they wake she sends them outside and they raise a calf,<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; a collie, each other.<br /> Margaret smokes so she can see each sigh. She smokes constantly.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The ashtrays overflow. Later, as therapy, she will make ashtrays.<br /> Margaret is a dream Margaret once had. Margaret drinks toward the dream<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; she can’t quite forget and doesn’t dare remember. She wakes<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to choose sleep.<br /> She is a wrong turn Margaret took or several turns. She is bad about<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; directions.<br /> Margaret is not a door that opens nor cruelty nor a bed nor forgiveness.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But she can be forgiven.<br /> I repeat, Margaret is a field and a path through the field and the point<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; where the path disappears. She will not come to find you.<br /> Because she will not come to find you, you start out deep<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in this gold and weedy field.</p> <p>First published in <em>Colorado North Review</em>. Also appears in <em>Swan, What Shores?</em></p> <h3>Three Photographs Not of My Father</h3> <p>I am writing about this photograph of a rock<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; because I am not writing about my father.<br /> The rock is not here. Neither is my father.<br /> The rock is alone. And my father?<br /> The photographer found the rock absorbing. It has<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; no <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rock-art-colorado">petroglyphs</a></strong>. What do I know of my father’s life?<br /> The sky is pure blue. My father was a chemist<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; who distilled liquid to vapor then liquid again,<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; the way dreams precipitate into worlds.<br /> The rock lies in a desert. What was his dream?</p> <p>I am writing about a photograph of a girl on a motorcycle<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; because I am still not writing about my father.<br /> She is grinning. In all the photographs, my father is grinning.<br /> She holds a cigarette. My father held a cigarette. Though my mother<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; held a cigarette, she was far too beautiful for their fortune<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; to be told.<br /> The girl straddles the motorcycle. My father raced cars.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; Around and around he orbited the waiting<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; family and never left, and left.&nbsp;</p> <p>I am writing about a photograph of a Buddhist man walking<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; away because I am writing about my father.<br /> His face is turned away. My father’s face has turned away.<br /> The folds of his saffron robe surround him. My father wore a<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; white lab coat.<br /> The monk crosses a wooden bridge, walks to a house roofed in<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; grass.<br /> My father told stories that grew longer in the middle. He died<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; mid-sentence. Was he surprised to be so soon<br /> &nbsp; like the boy in the story he recited who stood on the burning deck?<br /> O captain, my captain, who will recite you? I, who was distilled<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp; in my father’s house, I?</p> <p>First published in <em>Salt Hill Journal</em>. Also appears in <em>Swan, What Shores?</em></p> <h3>Threshold</h3> <p>The night you lay dying,<br /> there was a space around the house<br /> into which nothing <em>untoward</em> could come,<br /> in which nothing but your dying could take place.<br /> It was a hole in the field,<br /> like the hush into which a child is born. As if<br /> at all times, or whenever necessary,<br /> shafts of quiet pierce the world – we don’t know<br /> the ways of the soul.<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But we know how artists make a map<br /> of somewhere foreign, then telescope one spot forward,<br /> to show details. You lay on the bed,<br /> breathing hard. A lens of lamplight. Your husband<br /> on one side of you, I on the other. We told small, round stories,<br /> beads on a string we passed over you. As if<br /> that were our job, while yours was counting<br /> out your breaths to the last.</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When I left, I took the waiting<br /> with me. But it wasn’t waiting; there was no time in it.<br /> I woke before dawn, with these words,<br /> “Why do you seek the dead among the living?” The call came,<br /> like news of someone arrived safely in another country.<br /> I am always surprised that the word <em>threshold</em><br /> hinges on just one <em>h</em>. Each time, I write one for <em>thresh</em><br /> and one for <em>hold</em>.</p> <p>First published in <em>New Letters.</em> Also appears in <em>Thresh &amp; Hold </em>(Big Pencil Press, 2009).</p> <h3>How I Created the Universe</h3> <p><em>—for Evan</em></p> <p>First, I said, let there be light. I considered other things<br /> but light seemed a place to start. I could see where I was,<br /> where to go. I like to watch light on snow,<br /> so I made snow. Good light. Good snow.</p> <p>On the second day, I created your arms to divide me<br /> from chaos, which I also need.</p> <p>On the third day, I formed your body to fit mine; we spun<br /> like an axis, so I thought of and made the earth.</p> <p>On the fourth day, I created the children at their present ages,<br /> our house, the twelve pine trees in the yard, our street,<br /> our jobs, garbage, and a truck to collect it Thursdays.</p> <p>On the fifth day, I made history, so we would know<br /> what we'd done, and women's rights, so we wouldn't do it again.<br /> I made countries and people and newspapers to report them.<br /> I said, let there be Stephen Hawking, physicist in a wheelchair,<br /> to tie it all together and figure out how it might have happened<br /> if I hadn't made it myself.</p> <p>The sixth day dawned: I invented God to answer questions<br /> of suffering, which I did not invent, but which is,<br /> and love (which I made space for on day two), then<br /> restlessness and a true teacher.</p> <p>On the seventh day, I chanted more of the list: horizons,<br /> libraries, elephants, the Art Institute of Chicago, the<br /> French horn. I left some items to others. Last, poetry—<br /> the Williams, Shakespeare and Blake, and Emily Dickinson—<br /> and the second law of thermodynamics, all to strip disguises<br /> from order and chaos, and from then on there was no time,<br /> no place to rest until</p> <p>I remembered your arms the second day.</p> <p>First published in <em>Mid-American Review</em>. Also appears in <em>Swan, What Shores? </em>(New York: New York University Press, 2000).</p> <h3>A Short History of Arithmetic and Science</h3> <p>In first grade, <em>we</em> were the base, and a simple match of fingers and oranges led to the right answers. Or we added a picture of an orange to a picture of an orange, and then went on to lunch, storytime, a nap.</p> <p>When we got older, we had to leave our hands to consider weight, other fruits, prices: six oranges at twenty-five cents each or apples at so much a pound¾McIntosh, which were delicious and Delicious, which were not.</p> <p>Then life picked up speed and suddenly the train was leaving at 5:00 p.m. from a station 100 miles away and we had to get there in a car traveling 55 miles per hour or miss the one who was coming, first, by canoe (4 miles per hour) and bus (whose speed was unpredictable, which we would later call the uncertainty principle) to meet us in a city we had never been to.</p> <p>And if we got the answer right and rode the train all night and met the bus, would we pass, or be loved forever, though we couldn’t define love, for this was not English or philosophy or psychology, but math. What if we were off by a nanosecond, a billionth of a second, a near miss we could say but never think of?</p> <p>Meanwhile, someone had slipped in infinity, that figure skater’s requirement, and donuts with surfaces that never ended. We had to deal with powers, those smug little numbers above the others. And the stars, as it turned out, were light years away. And because light traveled at 186,300 miles per second, we loved beneath old, old light but felt new. And began to fear subtraction.</p> <p>Then it was calculus, and Einstein with his big E, and time started bending and space became a continuum we weren’t sure we were on. Quarks were the only Truth and black holes sucked in anyone who went too close and many followed like Jews to the station. The tinkertoy atom exploded and we, who once thought civilization was all geometric progression, stood with our mouths open zeros.</p> <p>Chaos kept turning into order, though it looked like chaos from here. We could not find randomness when we were looking for it. But we discovered that our cells replaced themselves at astonishing rates; we were new over and over but felt old.</p> <p>I have no answers¾differential, integral, or infinitesimal¾but this page is still my worksheet, and I fill in the blank that once I filled with long, long division with this equation: stay with me beneath the stars. I’m good at remainders.</p> <p>We’ll go out and recline like Cassiopeia and pretend that the dipper¾that looks tonight like it could scoop up the house¾<em>is</em> what will dip us up at last and pour us into another place with a different mathematics. We’ll peel and eat two oranges—one for me, one for you—lick our fingers and opposing thumbs before we walk together out onto the grass, among the 10,000 green blades.</p> <p>First published in <em>Swan, What Shores? </em>(New York: New York University Press, 2000).</p> <h3>Perseids, Later</h3> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; —for Evan</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A tease of clouds intermits<br /> the searing blueblack. Cicadas<br /> drone in a 3 a.m. silence<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and I fall back</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; onto an Army blanket, 1956,<br /> a meadow outside Ithaca, lying with sister<br /> and brother, in the grip of fierce&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; dreams and longings, my skin</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; alive with <em>up,</em><br /> drawn to the studded dark, whose<br /> tiny burns might be those of a sparkler<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; twirled too fast.</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This night, as you sleep inside,<br /> I lift binoculars to contain<br /> these pricking lights, which<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; perforate,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;yet still pull me<br /> to them. Your dream wafts from the house,<br /> a stay. In waning heat, in my thin<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; nightshirt, I feel</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the years accordion,<br /> and I shiver. Each of us<br /> gets to be vast sometime. Three&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; meteors streak</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the length<br /> of a star-glazed strand<br /> of my hair. <em>How can the birds sleep<br /> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in this confetti of light?</em></p> <p>First published in <em>Driftwood Review. </em>Also appears in <em>Sudden White Fan.</em></p> <h3>News of the World, 1887</h3> <p>—after Vincent Van Gogh’s <em>Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples</em></p> <p>Nothing holds still. Lemons import a sharp light. The purple grapes have left behind<br /> the vineyards of history, which makes them luminous and sweet. The green grapes are<br /> like painters; even their jealousies have a certain flair. Yellow leaves gesture to autumn. Someone brought them in—rather than sorrow or ashes—from a walk. Here, they itch for wind and field again. One of five apples hurries off the canvas. Such <em>leaving</em>. But then, just for a moment, each fruit ponders its personal how-I-came-to-be-in-the-studio-this-morning. Hosting paint. None can imagine its long role as <em>the past</em>. Or see stems as wicks. The cosmos swirls here as a tablecloth, serving up everything. Note the rare pigment<em> burnt joy</em>.&nbsp;</p> <h3>Ludlow</h3> <p style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>In 1914, miners and their families were shot and killed<br /> by armed guards called in to break up the miners' camp.<br /> The incident came to be known as the <strong><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ludlow-massacre">Ludlow Massacre</a></strong>.</em></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>There is hardly a sign of it now<br /> in the meadow that moves into two valleys<br /> just off the highway in southern Colorado.<br /> The grass sways in the breeze. It is<br /> a beautiful erasure.</p> <p>Down a road in a small fenced yard a monument lifts<br /> like a hand. There is a covered pit where striking miners,<br /> their wives and children died, pits like graves,<br /> then graves. It was 1914, early spring.</p> <p>Outside the fence is a box<br /> with a visitor’s notebook: “My father<br /> mined coal for thirty years. He died last fall<br /> of lung disease . . .” “This was a terrible time.<br /> It isn’t over . . .” The breeze<br /> riffles the pages.</p> <p>So this is history, I think: a father’s darkening lung,<br /> this meadow grown sweet and blank.<br /> Then the tenses stun me: this happened,<br /> this is happening, this will happen.<br /> I look again at the universe of grass and forgetting.</p> <p>I sign the book.</p> <p>Published in <em>Thresh &amp; Hold </em>(Big Pencil Press, 2009).</p> <h3>Signatures</h3> <p style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>“Artifacts are signatures of particular kinds of behavior.”</em><br /> —Richard A. Gould, in<em> Archeological Perspectives on the<br /> Battle of the Little Bighorn</em></p> <p>cartridge case arrowhead rib bullet obliquely severed cervical vertebra Spencer case evidence of extraction failure articulated arm bones of a young soldier eight trouser buttons four river cobbles fingerbone (encircled with a ring) Dimmick case right foot lower arm leg and foot (still encased in a cavalry boot) facial bones of a male (pipe smoker) butt-plate screw fob ring carbine swing swivel snap backstrap ejector rod button from an 1873 Colt revolver two cartridges struck by bullets distal ulna lead fragments Barlow-style pocket knife fire-steel loading lever forage-cap chin-strap tin cup canteen stopper-ring saddle guard plate trouser-buckle telescope eyepiece Remington bullet white porcelain shirt button harness rivet girth D-ring tip of gold-painted butcher knife flatnosed bullet with single crimping groove (bone embedded) Indian ornament made from cartridge cases suspender-grip tobacco-tag hook-and-eye watch movement regulator hand 1872 cavalry boot (upper cut away) general-service button (blue wool attached) femur mess-fork hoof pick cranial vault fragment (sky showing through)</p> <p>First published in <em>Coal City Review.</em> Also appears in <em>Maneuvers: Poems of the Battle of the Little Bighorn </em>(Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2013).</p> <h3>My Edward Hopper Eye, My Claude Monet</h3> <p>I walk the streets at night<br /> shutting first one eye, then the other.</p> <p>The left eye is Hopper, its lens<br /> too clear for comfort, the hard lines<br /> of a town you're stuck in, always<br /> August, noon or midnight.</p> <p>The right eye haloes each street lamp.<br /> Threads of light dissolve each tree into<br /> the next in Paris, spring,<br /> dusk.</p> <p>Who could live in that Hopper city?<br /> Once I married there and became<br /> that beautician with hennaed hair<br /> and too many secrets, none her own.</p> <p>In Monet's garden of well-tended horizons<br /> I sleep three nights, then someone delivers<br /> a newspaper. In the damp green air<br /> events rub off on my hands.</p> <p>In every storm<br /> one eye watches bare light<br /> shock the land, split a tree;<br /> the other sees each gutter<br /> alive with wings and the rain rinsing.</p> <p>And so the eyes argue:<br /> one strips, one clothes. One cauterizes,<br /> one salves. And I<br /> walk on.</p> <p>First published in <em>Louisville Review</em>. Also appears in <em>Swan, What Shores? </em>(New York: New York University Press, 2000). The poem was also read by Garrison Keillor on his radio program, “Writer’s Almanac.”</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/art" hreflang="en">Art</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/literature" hreflang="en">Literature</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/writing" hreflang="en">Writing</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/visual-arts" hreflang="en">Visual Arts</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/psychology" hreflang="en">Psychology</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/science" hreflang="en">science</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/mathematics" hreflang="en">Mathematics</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/social-studies" hreflang="en">Social Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/painting" hreflang="en">Painting</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/art-history" hreflang="en">Art History</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/form-prose-poem" hreflang="en">Form: Prose Poem</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/us-history" hreflang="en">U.S. History</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-history" hreflang="en">colorado history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sociology" hreflang="en">Sociology</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> Thu, 24 Jan 2019 20:54:47 +0000 yongli 3026 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org