Mend Poetry | Mend Links | Quilt Mending
Pond
by Gordon Fearey
My father spent a decade hauling
mud out of the pond behind his house,
having first yanked the log out of the pipe in the dam,
then building little pyramids of rock and mud on the oval floor
that remained so long
grass and later trees grew out of them,
while I changed majors and graduated
and graduated again
and still my mother
had no view of water from the kitchen window,
and my sister’s children were born
three thousand miles east,
tadpoles,
and my other sister’s children were born
three thousand miles west.
And all this while he was making progress on the pond.
Now a man of seventy, he could be seen
heaving a wheelbarrow across a board
that reached from a rock in the center to the bank.
He would aim the tire down the wooden path
and follow with little steps,
the board bending and jiggling,
his posture inviting everything to slip.
Once across, he would heave and shove the load
over roots and soft spots along the side of the stream
to where he was making the ground smooth.
Through the years I would help.
My mother would suggest it.
Later I would offer a hand,
fill a few wheelbarrows,
aware of my lower back,
wondering how many places
his body would break in if he ever fell.
But in the act of digging,
standing on a mound and slicing it out
from under my own feet,
swinging the shovel like a pendulum
so the wet clod might travel
through the air in one piece,
he would take the shovel from my hand
to show me another way
of shoveling, throwing, standing
and I would watch and wait for him
to give it back.
He would fill the wheelbarrow
and head off across the bridge,
somehow cradling the shovel under his arm.
From the dam now I could see him upend
the wheelbarrow with a perfect motion
he must have invented.
When he returned I would be invisible,
and he would continue to work as he had
through many seasons,
his t-shirt soaked with sweat,
when I was somewhere else,
anywhere.
© Gordon Fearey. “Pond” first published in Mudfish 3, Box Turtle Press, 1989. Revised May 12, 2009
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A pantoum
by Kimi Lee
allowing masculine ignition to triumph—her body will betray her.
The light wasn’t supposed to dim, evening going into darkness now—
devastation brought them together, lost love immemorial rekindled.Allowing masculine ignition to triumph—her body will betray her
as she whispers stand where I can see you—
devastation brought them together, lost love immemorial rekindled.
His shirt still hangs behind cedar doors, his face still hangs behind closed lids.
As she whispers stand where I can see you—
she wonders how the one now in her bed once nursed her bedridden husband.
His shirt still hangs behind cedar doors, his face still hangs behind closed lids,
as she slowly unlaces, undoes, unhooks—the children are asleep below.
She wonders how the one now in her bed once nursed her bedridden husband,
limbs shifting in delicate synchrony, hurting still in unison, breathing still in unison,
as she slowly unlaces, undoes, unhooks—the children are asleep below.
No premonitions, just eyes meeting, bruised people abandoning grief.
Limbs shifting in delicate synchrony, hurting still in unison, breathing still in unison,
they know he was taken too young, deprived a lifetime of children rearing children.
No premonitions, just eyes meeting, bruised people abandoning grief—
when they came to the surface they were weeping.
They know he was taken too young, deprived a lifetime of children rearing children,
Yet he would have wanted beauty to stem from sorrow, he would have wanted love.
When they came to the surface they were weeping.
Strange how loss forms the strongest liaison, funny how compensation mends.
He would have wanted beauty to stem from sorrow, he would have wanted love.
She turns to dress, wondering if he watched cross-legged from his favorite chair,
strange how loss forms the strongest liaison, funny how compensation mends.
Words unspoken never surface, she knows he’ll now wear his shirt forevermore.
She turns to dress, wondering if he watched cross-legged from his favorite chair,
devastation brought them together, lost love immemorial rekindled.
Words unspoken never surface, she knows he’ll wear his shirt forevermore,
she withdraws from this connubial holocaust, dishonoring late husband.
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Cycle of Fear
by Louisa Drury, 2008/09
There’s a fire in the cave
Surging up through the gut
Scorching neck-side boulders
Hurtling down limp canals
To a graveyard of finger-bones
Take a deep breath….
Wind stirs the stagnant streams
Wafting the poison toward the drain
Washing the rocks and boulders
With fresh rain and poems
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The following poem uses an Oulipo form called “analytic definition”. It was submitted by Nora Castle, a junior at Saint Ann’s School.
Mend Poem
by Nora Castle
| Made- | Ending- | No- | Devastation- |
| And – | Never- | Everlasting- | Eye- |
| Kept- | Deny- | Action- | Always- |
| Envious- | Road- | Time- | |
| Honda- |
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Martin Skoble launched the series of MEND poems with his own “acronymic poem” – each line is an acronym for the word MEND – an oulipian exercise (check our workshops page for upcoming Oulipo Workshops taught at PG by Tom La Farge):
Municipal effluvia newly diminished
mobilizes emergent, nascent desires:
magical environments, not dreams
make everything new (daily).
Maybe everyone notices details
more easily now, demanding
mature engagement, neighborhood desires
marrying environmental necessity. Development
means enrichment not destruction,
making entertainment, not dullness,
moving, educating, nourishing, doing!
Join us!
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A medicinal poem, mending by draughts:
The Moon
by Jaime Sabines
or in capsules every two hours.
It’s useful as a hypnotic and sedative
and besides it relieves
those who have had too much philosophy.
A piece of moon in your purse
works better than a rabbit’s foot.
Helps you find a lover
or get rich without anyone knowing,
and it staves off doctors and clinics.
You can give it to children like candy
when they’ve not gone to sleep,
and a few drops of moon in the eyes of the old
helps them to die in peace.
Put a new leaf of moon
under your pillow
and you’ll see what you want to.
Always carry a little bottle of air of the moon
to keep you from drowning.
Give the key to the moon
to prisoners and the disappointed.
For those who are sentenced to death
and for those who are sentenced to life
there is no better tonic than the moon
in precise and regular doses.
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A poem in which nature mends the horror of death and dishonor:
Everything is Plundered, Betrayed, Sold
Anna Akhmatova, 1921
Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods.
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.
And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses-
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.
Translated by Stanley Kunitz
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An oulipian “Beau Present” poem using only the letters in the word MEND submitted by Wendy Walker:
Men deemed me Eden
Needed me ended
