Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Garden Party

While the spring snow still lies against the fence
and the china closet holds its pinks and pearls
I dream of opening its picture glass doors,
the clinking of goblets over linen set plates.

While chimes stir slowly on an evening's breath
and muffled laughter ripples through thick bamboo,
we'll gather once more by the rose bouquets,
let the flames of the heart lick the moon.

Attar of Roses

My neighbor buzzes her bamboo again.
The warrior's slender hand extends,
growling.
The bamboo screens out the neighbors
but not their wars.
We live in peace, the bamboo and I.
I think the bamboo may be deaf
to the menace that surrounds it.

Peace descends over rose leaves,
dappled in the afternoon.
A plane flies over the maple,
a solitary drone.
There are no targets here worth hitting.
We lead simple lives under pear and apple trees
that linger over a chaise on a manicured lawn.

Silence now. The wind's a wisp
through leaves being born again.
Leaves that enclose the garden
lift for a glimpse of light passing,
settle into shadow,
memory of winter gone.
No voices distract the chatter in the limbs
reaching out to the gauzy window.
Swaddled in the bedroom,
I am safe. Surrounded by
these black-streaked sentinels.

Far to the East on a border,
slicked black hair, valet hats and epaulets
march like marionettes.
Hand to hand, slap!
And slam the gates.

Any time, overhead,
the whistling may pass.
Some will stand in fields,
see the sun explode in shadow.
Their sickness will be slow,
slower than traffic stalled

over the erupted roads.
The land will lie exposed,
cleared with horse and plow,
cleared by bullet birds without eyes.

We wait in verdant fields,
all of the roses budding
like their kin, attar of Persia.
We sit by the wild roses,
our knees drawn up to our chins.
We picnic, our eyes slit for terrorists.

My Mother Dying

It wasn't what she said
when I leaned over.
It was the look,
wide, unfocused,
dark, wet.
I looked
in that deep
sorrowing sea
of leaky boats,
sailor's ropes
strewn out
over the clamshell
stretched out beach.

Her lying in that bed
on a white sheet
it's own beach and
her with her feet
out of water.
What could I do
but wade in and sink?
The undertow sucked at
my feet, my naked feet,
drowning.

I Will Pray for Release

They all struggled.
A gnashing of teeth,
Wrestling with sheets,
Bitter shuddering breaths.
None of them gave up the ghost.

I want to be gone in a thunderclap.
Sneak out while the siren shrieks.
Collapse when someone first asks,
"What's wrong?" In one strong gust,
I will drop all my leaves.

Harvest Moon

The dog howled before dawn.
 I arose, drenched to the skin.
When you reach the age of losses,
the whole body weeps.

I drove east
along the river
in the dark, in fog
that refused to disclose
the next turn.

I broke the park
rules to get in.
Crows watched
from high
on dead limbs. Trees
had begun to turn. The tide,
low as thin ice over mud flats.

The dog and I followed
the sandy drive, up the hill,
by the empty playground. In the east,
an orb so large, so close
the harvest moon, I thought.

We approached through the damp grass,
bending to see through the pine trees,
closer and closer to the ledges.
There, a full circle, the color
of embers after all have gone
to sleep, laid its color as
a narrow, straight path
on the cool, gray blue.
The fog cleared.
The day began.

For Lisa

Here you are again,
injured, your back
broken with sorrow
like a sparrow
beating wings
against reflection, and

I, your old black crow,
want to swoop down and
scoop you up,
my little songbird,
stuck in the rafters,
in glue meant for pigeons.

Oh, sing again my sweet!
For the leaves are falling;
the hare will soon turn white;
the snow-covered fields will shake
 before the hunters' bows.

Sing to Me No Words

At wakes let the women keen.
Let the men sit silently,
only their bowler hats tap,
tapping against their knees.

I want to give birth
the way we conceived,
mud-faced pagans
guttural under our breaths.
Breach the mask!
Let loose the bare-assed wail!
Sing to me no words.

At wakes let the women keen.
Let the men sit silently,
only their bowler hats tap,
tapping against their knees.

A Few Grains of Sand

A poem-note in a bottle.
You could say that's how you found this--
buried beneath seaweed still damp.
On a lonely beach in Schoodic
the morning glory closes
when it's time to light the lamp.
You can say you came at twilight.
The moon was on the horizon,
her mouth open to the ocean.
Confess when you lifted it,
stars flickered for a moment,
but when you turned it over
a few grains trickled down your hand.

On Writing Poetry

You hear the call, a faint cry,
down the long hall.
It is this voice you trace.
        You strain to reach
        the hands that hang the wash.
        Tread softly as a penitent
        with a laundry basket
        among the fallen leaves.

Then, back in the kitchen,
among the clatter of pots,
        the cat stalks. A phantom
        whines demand for dry food
        that crackles in its small, sharp teeth.

Night falls asleep
        to long halls,
        open doors.
You don't know what you seek
            until the voice speaks.
        You move toward it,
            a ghostly presence
            in your own house.

Now rise from the bedchamber,
    a stranger wearing linen
        in the corridor
        where any window
        could snuff out the light.

Oh traveler, you do not know this route.
You could go back to sleep,
awaken to birdsong for an earth troubled
by the drone of trucks
ponderous on the pavement.

    Trees grow on a lunar cycle,
    the cycle of women's streams,
    of living hands in soapy washtubs,
    of lifting up porous linen to the light.

I want to be a washerwoman,
    robust and ruddy in a large apron,
    my sleeves rolled up,
    the rhythm of the washboard
    to my scrubbing,
    sheets unraveling,
    long streams of white,
    fluttering over lawns.

Vines on Paper

I can't say how much I like this time, dusk,
the small bird whistling by the window,
the dog lying on the carpet on his side,
only the flutter of his heart and
his curly chest rising up and down.

It reminds me when I was an only child
of the stillness in the summer back yard
by the lily of the valley spreading up
early in the morning before the heat
made me search out the shade of the park

I lay on my belly lost in a book,
the way one lies on the beach.
Other voices recede.
Only the author speaks.

With time and no distractions.
the silence of attention,
listening not for the dog that barks,
but for the dog that lies on the carpet,
home, where there is peace, where all are well,
where we all expect tomorrow as entitlement--and sunny, too.

I'm sure it will happen,
and now I can sleep, restfully,
deep in the pillow, snuggled under the quilt.

I might even count the petals on the walls
as I did as a child,
not out of boredom,
but because they were so interesting,
these patterns, trailing vines on paper.

Lillian Baker Kennedy, a Maine native, received her J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law. Kennedy has an active domestic relations practice in Lewiston, Maine. She created and maintains the website, "Hearsay: Poetry Written by Lawyers" (www.lawyerpoetry.com). Kennedy's first collection of poetry, Tomorrow After Night was published by Bay River Press, in 2003. Her poetry and the sculpture of Kerstin Engman will be displayed at the University of Maine's Lewiston/Auburn gallery, November, 2003, in an exhibit called, "Earthly Beatitudes," the title of the featured poem.
"Garden Party" was first published in Sweet Annie and Sweet Pea Review (2002). "My Mother Dying" and "Sing to Me No Words" appeared on the web in July, 2003 when Kennedy was a featured poet on Poetry Super Highway (poetrysuperhighway.com). "I Will Pray for Release" was first published in Monkey's Fist (2003). All the poems appearing here, except "A Few Grains of Sand," "On Writing Poetry," and "Vines on Paper," were drawn from Kennedy's collection, Tomorrow After Night (Bay River Press, 2003). "On Writing Poetry" and "Vines on Paper" appeared in "Earthly Beatitudes," an exhibit of sculpture and poetry at University of Southern Maine Auburn College, Atrium Gallery, November-December, 2003.