December 31, 2021

Marjorie Saiser

THIS IS WHAT LIFE DOES

It gives you a glorious green childhood,
if you’re lucky, and I hope you were.
Mine was barefoot, it had bicycles
and swimming, it had some
dogma but I shucked that off.
This is what life does. For instance,
I stepped out my door this morning
before sunrise—some people are morning people,
some—my neighbors in their unlit houses—
sleep long honeyed sleep, apparently,
and this morning
a firefly was caught in the grass
a few feet from where I stood.
I couldn’t see the insect, but assumed
him by the light he gave off, and he or she
couldn’t apparently get airborne,
couldn’t make those arcs in the air,
those sweeps of light their kind
are known for. This one was stuck
low in the grass, the grass I couldn’t see.
Life is like that. You assume
so much, and the firefly
sparked in the grass for a few minutes,
blinked on the ground,
would have done so whether I watched it
or wasn’t there. I looked at stars without
knowing the names assigned to them.
The shapes of trees made an opening, 
a window. I saw sky
and several nameless ancient stars,
and suddenly it was as if something
important had shifted in a dream last night,
a dream I don’t remember the details of.
Something useful and helpful to me.
After I had been angry and felt so
disrespected again, shut down, stifled,
and yet I mean it
when I say I’m lucky. That is what
life does, gives me another morning,
fleeting reminders, small impermanent
flashes in the grass.

from Rattle #73, Fall 2021

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Marjorie Saiser: “Somebody (who?) said if you can quit writing, do. Something to that effect. So far, I can’t quit. I have to read some poems every day, and probably put some lines on a page.” (web)

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June 26, 2020

Marjorie Saiser

I WAS CHARMED BY THE DIRT ROAD

Two ruts down, down, leading
at last to the farmhouse.
I was charmed by your mother 
setting two dishpans on the table,
one with suds for washing, one in which
she stacked everything for rinsing,
pouring over all from the tea kettle.
I helped. I slipped into my role as
into an apron, drying the plates, cups, forks,
with a snowy white dish towel, embroidered:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Perhaps she used
old raggy towels except when I came. When I came,
she killed a chicken in the yard, and when it was done
flopping, headless, she went to it and took its feet,
carried it hanging upside down, into the basement,
where she dipped it into a pail of hot water,
tore its feathers off in handfuls, held 
a newspaper torch under the carcass
to burn a few hairs off its skin,
cut it open on the table she had there,
took the guts out, pulled the lungs loose
from the rib bones, her fingers not lovely
but sure of their task, carried the chicken
upstairs, washed it, the dishpan so useful
again, cut pieces expertly with a thin curved knife,
rolled each drumstick, wing, breast,
in flour and laid it into the hot grease of a
cast-iron skillet. While it sputtered and browned,
she set the table, stirred up the biscuits
in a green glass bowl. I saw the array:
plates plain white and shiny, the cups 
waiting for their coffee, all the song of this,
the chorus, the riffs, and I thought
with some minor changes I could do it.

from Rattle #67, Spring 2020

__________

Marjorie Saiser: “I was going to say this is a persona poem, but no, it’s me, a long time ago. In a galaxy far away. Distance is such a powerful thing.” (web)

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February 27, 2017

Marjorie Saiser

FINAL SHIRT

After my father died, my mother
and my sisters picked the shirt, the tie;
he had just the one suit.
I left them to it, I didn’t
want to choose, I loved him
all those years. They took a shirt
from the closet, I don’t remember
which one, I’m sure he had worn it
to church and hung it up again.
They held a tie against the cloth
of the shirt. They decided, finally.
It’s like that. Things come down
to the pale blue or the white,
or some other. Someone buttoned it
over him, those buttons he had unbuttoned.

from Rattle #54, Winter 2016

[download audio]

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Marjorie Saiser: “I’m figuring it out. I write to live twice. That’s one of the reasons.” (website)

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