by Sharron Egan Belson
Sharron Egan Belson was born in Chicago, Illinois and gravitated west to become a Central Californian in 1987. She teaches poetry at The Writer's Center, desktop publishing at The Computer Learning Center and is an art commissioner for the mountain village of Mill Valley. She earns a living as a textile rep in The Bay Area. Her ongoing work can be seen in the quarterly ROOMS as well as in the anthology A SUMMER ROOM available at The Book Depot. She is a regular on Salon http://www.salonmagazine.com and at The Byte Yard http://byteyard.com a chat room for writers. Her website address is: http://home.pacbell.net/shabels/heart.html and her e mail address is shabels@pacbell.net
She was left there
Their cooking resembled not
There was life-size mystery
Nowadays her children
Tiny voices call her Nana
Hoping grace would ensue
But what actually happened
Was that the ways of the nuns
Became her ways and although
She was but a small child
The folds of their habits
And the medieval cut of their gowns
Patterned upon her psyche and became
Mother to her.
At all the culinary transport she once rode
Flavors that were now fading
As though they might have been merely
Imagined. There were no longer dumplings
Or pimentos in the fricassee
No butter floating in the risotto
No warm bread, no pots of tea at all.
Only tomatoes straight from the vast
Sexton cans. And wide noodles.
A dish she concocts still, to see if it holds
The power yet to bring back particular scents
Singular sounds and their damp echoes
In the statues that lined the old stone walls
In the glass eyes of Michael The Archangel
As he pierced the flesh of Satan
Writhing below. There was oddity
In the round body of The Infant
Of Prague as he stood doing not
Much in his golden crown
And his lace robes and his doll-like
Lack of expression. There were
Rows and rows of little beds
And little chests and little chairs
And the breath of hundreds of girls
Moving slightly the tight air inside
A dark and static dormitory.
And people not her children
Ask why she is the way
She is. The question seems
Untoward. The whole world
Seems always to be moving several
Flights ahead of what she was taught
To expect. Nunnish, said one almost
Husband as he packed his bags
Although the way she's lived her life
Is far too fast for the eyes and ears
Of women in black serge who used to chant
In Latin. Nunnish, though, is not the worst
Thing they could call her.
Their liquid eyes watching her every
Step, the silk of her skirts womanly
As she climbs their winding stairs
The steady sound of her conversation
Lulling them to sleep. She knows
What memories are forming. She tries
To be fluid, herself for them.
She holds them in her lap as she was not
Often held. She listens to their small words
And has learned to cherish
What she is just beginning
To understand
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway 1998. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for
copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their
original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © Sharron Egan Belson 1998.
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