How to Apologize

   

Cook a large fish—choose one with many bones, a skeleton
you will need skill to expose, maybe the flying
silver carp that's invaded the Great Lakes, tumbling
the others into oblivion. If you don't live
near a lake, you'll have to travel.
Walking is best and shows you mean it,
but you could take a train and let yourself
be soothed by the rocking
on the rails. It's permitted
to receive solace for whatever you did
or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful
human. When my mother was in the hospital,
my daughter and I had to clear out the home
she wouldn't return to. Then she recovered
and asked, incredulous,
How could you have thrown out all my shoes?
So you'll need a boat. You could rent or buy,
but, for the sake of repairing the world,
build your own. Thin strips
of Western red cedar are perfect,
but don't cut a tree. There'll be
a demolished barn or downed trunk
if you venture further.
And someone will have a mill.
And someone will loan you tools.
The perfume of sawdust and the curls
that fall from your plane
will sweeten the hours. Each night
we dream thirty-six billion dreams. In one night
we could dream back everything lost.
So grill the pale flesh.
Unharness yourself from your weary stories.
Then carry the oily, succulent fish to the one you hurt.
There is much to fear as a creature
caught in time, but this
is safe. You need no defense. This
is just another way to know
you are alive.

-- Ellen Bass (1947- ), American poet, editor, and author

Image: Alfred Sisley, Fish On a Plate, 1865-1867

Mused Mary in Old Age

   

The lengthening shadows of the cedar trees

Have blended into twilight, and the sun 

Has plunged in glorious gold precipitance 

Beyond the dim crest of the western hills, 

Bearing with it the day’s disquietudes; 

And now the stars, that lamp the feet of God, 

Are lighted, and night’s purple silences 

Steal gently round me fraught with memories. 

’Twas such an hour as this—long, long ago 

Yet seeming yesterday—he came to me, 

My little son, in joyous travail born 

Out there across the hills in Bethlehem, 

Where we who journeyed southward to be taxed— 

Strangers in our own father’s land—had found 

No shelter in the crowded khan, and shared, 

Perforce, a grotto with the stabled kine. 

 Ah, how it all comes back again to me! 

The courtyard, in the flickering torchlight, filled 

With huddled trav’lers sleeping ’neath the sky, 

The kneeling camels of a caravan, 

The patient asses dozing by the wall, 

A smell of roasting meat at little fires, 

The shouts of melon-sellers, the low drone 

Of reverend elders bending at their prayers, 

Barking of street-dogs, porters’ blasphemies, 

The laughter of a girl, the mellow flute 

Of some rapt lover, and the tinkling tune 

Of sheep-bells forward moving through the dark.

And then the hour supreme, wherein my soul 

Clomb the dark pinnacles of pain, and death 

Grappled with life through whirling aeoned years,

But fled at length and left the Miracle. 

 They laid him there beside me on the hay, 

A wee pink being in his world’s first sleep; 

My arm was round about him and his breath 

Was warm with life on my exultant breast, 

And they whose winged watch is set to keep 

Ward in the valley lands of heaven looked down,

Not up, that night to find their paradise. 

All weak with labor and soul’s happiness, 

I lay beneath the sapphire tent of skies, 

And in my heart I made a little prayer 

Of thanks that flew up to the throne of God 

On swift dove pinions of unuttered song; 

And as I prayed, lo, upon loops of stars 

Night’s velvet curtainings were lifted up, 

A wondrous light turned all the world to rose, 

And down the skies swept singing seraphim 

In mighty echoes of my little prayer. 

Oh, can it be that threescore years have marched 

In troubled caravan across the waste 

Of desert life since then, and can it be 

That I, who sit here in mine eventide, 

White with the snows of sorrow and of time,

Was once a bright tressed girl who heard the choirs 

Of heaven rejoice that she had borne a son? 

Why, I can feel that little heart beat still 

Close to my own, the touch of little hands 

Warm and caressing on this withered breast; 

Still I can hear the first low wail that marked 

His woe’s beginning and the tortured path 

That he should tread in mighty gentleness, 

With pain and anguish, ’til his love supreme 

And terrible meekness, overcoming death, 

Should lead him conqueror to sit with God, 

Pleading for sinful men in paradise. 

Today I stole into the synagogue 

And heard a rabbi read the sacred scroll: 

How that my lord, Isaiah, said of old, 

Thy Maker is thy husband, he hath called thee 

As a forsaken woman, spirit grieved; 

God, for a little moment, hides his face 

From thee, but with his loving kindness soon 

And tender mercies shall he gather thee. 

Then was I comforted, and peace displaced 

The turmoil in my heart, and minded me 

Of that great promise Gabriel bore from God 

And the immeasurable fruitage of his word, 

The life and death and glory of my son. 

 So in the shades of life and night I sit, 

Under the sheltering arbor of the dark 

That curves above, vined o’er with trellised stars, 

Waiting my spirit bridegroom, and the sound 

Of that loved voice—long silent save in dreams— 

Calling across the vibrant firmament, 

O Mary, Mother Mary, come to Me.

-- George M. P. Baird (1887-1970), American poet, professor, and civil servant

Image: The Virgin Mary in Old Age, by James Tissot