The Hawk Living Room 6:30pm
note: refer back to poem titled “Candle Holder”
I bought My Chalice today
in Yarmouth
It is a Candle Holder
It is frosted
It says in black “Life
is not measured by
the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments
which take our breath away.”
I bought It at Wall * Mart
I could drink Scotch out of It
The Tomato-coloured Couch 8:00pm
My Mother told Me I couldn’t carry a tune
so She put Me in a crinkly black tutu
& expected Me to dance
I was the clumsy conundrum
My Teachers couldn’t figure out
I was Cinderella in French
& Teacher’s Pet in Junior High Science
I didn’t like High School
with One Peculiar Friend
Who wanted to get high
at lunch
My Mother put Me into Her College —
a small liberal arts school in up state New York
where I took all the art I could get
& transferred into Cooper Union in New York City
After graduating I decided
to paint the most visible roof in the world:
#5 World Trade Center
& was given permission by The Port Authority of NY & NJ
In 1984 I signed My Name
to the ten-thousand square-foot canvas
in three-foot high letters
I wore a crinkly black skirt
filmed by German Television
& three decades later
is on You Tube
The Hawk Family Room 7:30pm
“You can write poetry out of anything”
I glibly stated to a friend
who had taken Me out for a late birthday lunch —
Well Watch This — You Can’t–
take watching digital rain on Family Room window screens
& link it, somehow,
to My Hallmark Daughter
not giving Me a birthday card
then surprising Me with one
for Mother’s Day
The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:45pm
Look Out Children
‘cuz here I come
to colour Your World
in Pink & Gold
from Horizon to Horizon
I’m here to show You
True Blue
the ancient cauldrons
of desire
for leadership
of decades
aeons
The Hawk Living Room 1:30pm
Is It Too Trite
to write about My Old Bike
getting thrown out in the trash
along with My Cross Country Skis
Eliza doesn’t want —
My Ex Husband called this morning
promting the question
does anybody still want
My Teal 3-Speed I got for My Thirteenth Birthday?
Eliza said “no” & I said
“Are You putting it out by the road
for somebody to take?”
The Tomato-coloured Couch 3:33pm
What happened to That Long-haired Girl
Who painted That Giant Canvas
on The Roof of #5 World Trade Center?
I heard She turned 52
& writes in Her Journal
sitting on Her Tomato-coloured Couch
in Her astral-cork-floored living room
surrounded by beaches & dunes
waves & bird life
while Her Son starts a tree-planting job out West
& Her Daughter finishes correspondence courses
for Her Last Year
of High School
The Hawk West Desk Window 10:11pm
When My Husband Holds My Left Forearm
I Am In The Child’s Embrace
I Must Grow Up Into My Self
& Be The Woman Now
Without My Mother, The Single Parent
for I had no father
The Hawk West Desk Window 7:36pm
I wore My Blue Nose Dress
red sleeveless top, blue skirt
with white linear arrows appliquéd
on front, pointing up
— or were they pointing down?
It was The Outfit I remember
of all My Childhood Ferry Crossings
driven from Valley Cottage, New York
by a sleep-deprived Mother
to Bar Harbour, Maine’s Blue Nose Port
— with a younger Brother I barely remember —
driven and ferried every summer to Nova Scotia
The Province I would stay in
all My Adult Life —
married twice
with the lives & death of My 2.4 Children —
to live in old houses
on an island
on the mainland in woods named Atlantic
in an historic town named Shelburne
in a doctor’s big white castle in Barrington Passage
& now a new house
— new island —
on the point farthest south:
The Hawk, Cape Sable Island
where My Second Husband sleeps
on low blood pressure
while maintaining His high pressure job
taking care of nearly half the population
this end of the county —
and what do I do?
I am a housewife —
The Laziest In The World
according to My Daughter
& I Write To Tell The World
Joanna Gilman Hyde 