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The Rice Sonnets
Didn't Buddha say, "All is suffering?"
And Issa say, "The saddle is the same
as the zafu," and "The housewife and the monk
have a common job?" I left the water on.
I fold the socks mindlessly. Oh careless love.
Did Hari Das say, "The way of the householder
is not for everyone. Be householder saints!"
The demanding asks for just a little more.
The life I sought at twenty-five I attain
at double that. Mid life mystic. I chose this land,
the mornings are the same, the school lunch.
The same iris for a lifetime. I give up.
My children chose me and live with teeth
set on edge by my sour grapes. Capiche?
Mother Theresa died and you turned fifty-
two. Princess Diana's coffin travels to her gate.
Everything has the smell of making love,
I was going to say, amor. The dozen eggs
I pick, reaching under the broody hen,
the apple crisp I bake in honor of your birth.
The tree you planted that grew that sexy smell.
Amor, I was tempted to say that word again.
I cut the hail spots off the fruit, it's tart
and white fleshed. We have to prune, to cut,
to live with mighty imperfection. Can I say
in America, the ruined words "I love you?" Now
that you are fifty two and napping on the porch.
In Santa Fe, Fiesta night, an effigy burns gloom.
An old post card with a painting from India,
"The Night Pierces Me like a Sword."
I've still got the flu, even the blues
have to be put on hold until I get well.
I said my book will be called, No Plot.
I can be mean. Wish you were a pet
with adoring eyes, rather than professor
of a required course on say, statistics.
Of course, I love, but it gets off track
reading D.H. Lawrence and Camus. My word,
your word, soon it will change from sword
to concubine to peace. I've seen the work
of change, the patterns of rice as it flies
from the hands of the guests at the wedding.
Thanksgiving Day and the word I feared,
"accident," came on the phone line from Nepal.
It wasn't my child but her friend, another
woman's girl riding on top of the bus.
After the trek wild handed fate missed you,
smacked her clear to emergency. Dire
straits shock us from the other world
where nothing we do here matters. I baste
the bird we raised and killed. Arrange flowers
in the face of life when the wires are taut. Night
in Pokara is filled with my daughter's tears
"It was like a Freddy Kruger movie. I'm no good
with blood, we kept her out of shock.
Is it Thanksgiving ?" she asks in fright.
She came back from Nepal with a pierced
nose and a certain heart. Last night I dreamed
her feet were painted henna and black
as if for marriage. Her head shaved
as if for ordination. She and her sister
ate rice, had one body spanning years.
I live on edge. The henna cost dearly, or so
I dreamed, and would be danced off in days.
I saw her alive and fine, felt ancient weariness.
Her zest and my fear, her face and my fate.
Moved not to tears but to the fire where I sat
by her, and sat, drank ginseng tea for strength
and filled the night with thanks. Prayer
leaked into the night from my amateur heart.
Joan Logghe has lived in northern New Mexico with her husband since 1973 and raised three children, and built three houses. Her books include Sofia, Blessed Resistance, and Another Desert:Jewish Poetry of New Mexico. Awards include an NEA, a Barbara Deming Grant, Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry Grants, and a Mabel Dodge Luhan Internship.
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