Poems

Minahan Songs
Poems by Jeanne Minahan
Music by Andrew Hsu
In the Scriptorium
Night’s ink drained quietly
and left the surprise
of morning, grey-green clouds
swift seeping towards
the emptied page of night.
It is darker now
that the sun has risen;
I am not imagining this.
It’s hard to get a straight answer
from anyone these days
but the new day speaks,
if we listen:
clouds, a bit of rain,
and a weariness that will
not heal with time
alone.
Sorrow and All
There’s no end to it
even if you put it away
like a coin in your winter coat
you’ll find it again (with interest),
next snowfall.
Reticence
Most of it’s thrift:
what one holds back
for another day.
And surely
there could be worse
wind and rain
than this?
But, to reveal
the secret
(which promises
another day)
seems small.
Think of the men
on those dories—
flinging the day’s bait
seaward with the tiller
aimed for shore.
Palm Reader
Now that you’ve read my hand
and traced the river of sorrow there
what breadth, what peace,
what mishap,
how it bends to find a new path
through rock and ash, bone and tissue,
tell me, will it last
(river of sorrow river of joy),
tell me, will it last,
ask me.
That Summer
It was the season of linen.
Some times I took your hand,
or you, I think,
took mine.
We sauntered in the gardens,
we sunk our heels in sand.
It was the linen of summer
I gathered in my hands.
In winter there was a leaving,
I took my time, I took my time.
I don’t remember grieving,
though I remember your hands.
The Blue Dory
They anchored
the old dory
beside the painter’s studio
in a field of lupins
lavender, pink, rose, yellow, blue,
on a hill that calls out
each morning each evening
to the sea.
We went there together.
That knowledge
is the catch in my throat
which stutters now
like an oar caught in an oarlock.
Sometimes you make a circle
with your oar in the air
before you find the water.
Sometimes you gasp
but cannot breathe.
Sometimes you’re the dory
or the heaving heart within it,
paddling.
Sometimes, now,
you’re the sea.


