Stanley & Elise
His step tentative on the stones,
he inches his way forward. Deafness has deepened
his abstracted look, but summer saves him,
brings admirers to the garden's
Rose of Sharon trees. Elise hovers,
bent under the ghostly blues
guarding the door. Her hands worry the bright
silk of her blouse; her mind wants to fly.
When I try to bring her back
to the Provincetown of paintings and friends,
she shakes her floating hair and goes back calling
Stanley, Stanley....He won't stop digging in the dirt.
His pleasure is in the pairing of opposites:
flowers arranged in tiers, each hue
with its response, each tier rising to answer
the previous progress of blooms. It's a lesson
I take back to the dunes, the shack
where I'm reading St. Augustine, the old quarrel
about inquieta, the heart's heedless rush and stutter.
My soul, says Elise, is tired of me. Stanley's heart
is in the garden. Nighttime for him argues open
the seeds of doubt, writing in his little room.
It's all a contradiction, the interwoven dark
rising and falling as the oil lamp flares and smokes.
I lay the book aside, take the chimney from its base
to wash it. My bony hand folds in,
fingertips against the layer of greasy carbon,
sliding it off in pieces--
as if the black were wearing the glass,
a filmy night thing falling to specks, black stars
in the good water. My knuckles push against
the bowed middle, where light shines brightest,
the part that says if I break, here's where.
Cleopatra Mathis
he inches his way forward. Deafness has deepened
his abstracted look, but summer saves him,
brings admirers to the garden's
Rose of Sharon trees. Elise hovers,
bent under the ghostly blues
guarding the door. Her hands worry the bright
silk of her blouse; her mind wants to fly.
When I try to bring her back
to the Provincetown of paintings and friends,
she shakes her floating hair and goes back calling
Stanley, Stanley....He won't stop digging in the dirt.
His pleasure is in the pairing of opposites:
flowers arranged in tiers, each hue
with its response, each tier rising to answer
the previous progress of blooms. It's a lesson
I take back to the dunes, the shack
where I'm reading St. Augustine, the old quarrel
about inquieta, the heart's heedless rush and stutter.
My soul, says Elise, is tired of me. Stanley's heart
is in the garden. Nighttime for him argues open
the seeds of doubt, writing in his little room.
It's all a contradiction, the interwoven dark
rising and falling as the oil lamp flares and smokes.
I lay the book aside, take the chimney from its base
to wash it. My bony hand folds in,
fingertips against the layer of greasy carbon,
sliding it off in pieces--
as if the black were wearing the glass,
a filmy night thing falling to specks, black stars
in the good water. My knuckles push against
the bowed middle, where light shines brightest,
the part that says if I break, here's where.
Cleopatra Mathis
Cleopatra Mathis has taught at Dartmouth since 1982, when she began the Creative Writing program. Stanley Kunitz was her mentor at Columbia University and remained her poetry mentor and friend until the end of his life. Cleopatra Mathis' work has appeared widely in anthologies, textbooks, magazines and journals, including The Best American Poetry, 2009, The New Yorker, Poetry and American Poetry Review. She has published six books of poetry and won numerous awards, including two NEA grants, The Robert Frost Resident Poet Award and The May Sarton Award. She is the Frederick Sessions Beebe '35 Professor of the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College.
Stanley & Elise used by permission of the author.
Stanley & Elise used by permission of the author.
Banner photo by Kerry O'Gorman