Mary Kennan Herbert

Translations

Translators of poems
are enjoying a day off. There
is no one here to explain
what I mean. Stones. Pain.

Stones hit the window pane.
Was that a stone? Where?
The older I get, the more
paranoid. Is that the right word?
The more stress I feel,
the more fearful I am. Storms.
The dark. Blonde but smart,
she told me I have been depressed
my entire life. Imagine.
A depressed baby out in the rain.
Maybe. Alarums! Bad art!
As the breasts and belly sag,
states a crone' s conventional
wisdom, so goes the libido.
'I see the first signs of cataracts,'
observed my ophthalmologist,
a brunette. Those who desire
to rape and pillage are crouched
outside my door, they are left
holding the bag. Or a gag.
High above the Hackensack River
a blue heron headed north. I
saw it flap and soar resolutely
onward. I want to see that bird
again. Clearly. I don' t grieve.
I do not miss your hands.
Is that what I really mean?

[first appeared in Hjokfinnies Sanglines]

Sorting a Tray of Slides

How curious and inevitable:
all the images of vacations past
have tumbled together into a sun-flecked slide show.
Most are shadows now. I am unable
to find them, or maybe most are lost. Shades. Stilled at last.
Journeys are too hurried as we all know.
We know the ship won' t wait,
It was the end of a colourful trip, a launching, a sinking,
or the beginning, our fate.
Who was that waiting there, in the sunlight, by the gate?
All those beautiful galleries filled with art and Queen Anne chairs,
in this series of slides. I stop and stare,
I think about it and now see only one sunny room
painted yellow, filled with sporting art,
images of racehorses stopped in mid-air.
My father's slides of his Oregon stay
featured a whole roll devoted to the trout hatchery,
which he may have loved for the reflections of sunlight on the water,
image after image of little fish
stored away.
A whole week in Baltimore and the yellow room
is the only place on that journey I really remember or want to, I suppose.
It' s the sun we want:
the feeling of my arms warm in the sun on a beach in Baja California,
those fading colours, freckles on my young nose.

[first appeared in Hjokfinnies Sanglines]

Theologians at Lunch

It makes perfect sense, said Erasmus to Aquinas.
Pass the salt.

A fly on the wall listened.
Jesus, their conversation was so rational.

The fly buzzed about
from one argument to another.

Thus, when it fell into the soup,
salvation was near at hand.

Ockham solved the matter:
Soup, snoop, let's send out for pizza.

A serving girl gave them a look,
carried a tray of crockery to the cook.

Gab, gab, all through lunch.
One cannot think with all this chatter.

September Discards

Water striders
etch the surface
as if the pond were glass.

A haiku, eh?
Old lame image,
clich³s dropping like leaves.

The jaded poet
perches on the shore,
watches for poems.

None swim into view,
just an old carp,
or a turtle, something there.

Fishing at the slough
years ago, the poet saw
a formidable serpent,

a snake of some girth
swimming past her line,
testing its worth.

Her heart palpitated,
ancient fears aroused,
then quickly banked.

Suddenly rain
pockmarks the water.
The pond becomes a caldron.

Reflections bleed,
the old memory recedes.
You'll be back.

Droplets on grass,
the makings of a necklace
or a triplet.

A jeweller left extras,
scales, a bright eye,
at the end of summer's reign.

Originally from the Midwest (born in St. Louis, Missouri), Mary Kennan Herbert now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Following a career as a senior editor in book publishing, she now teaches writing and literature courses at Long Island University, and at other colleges in the New York City area. She has led creative writing workshops for Bryn Mawr College, St. Francis College in Brooklyn, and the Vermont Writers League. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and periodicals in the United States, Canada, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, India, and Japan, and have been selected for six anthologies. Ms. Herbert holds a degree in art and education from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a master's degree (M.A.) in creative writing with an emphasis on poetry, from The City College of New York, where she received three scholarships and the Jane Specter Award for graduate creative writing. Her first collection of poems was published in 1998 by Ginninderra Press in Australia, which also published her second and third books of poetry, in 1999 and 2000. Her fourth collection was published in 2000 by Meadow Geese Press in Massachusetts, USA, and her fifth book has just been published by Ginninderra Press. She has been invited to read her poetry at numerous events, including the New Jersey Book Fair and the Baltimore Book Festival. The Brooklyn Arts Council of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs awarded two grants to her, and she also received first prize in the 1999 poetry competition sponsored by the Midwest Conference on Christianity and Literature.