Allison Roberts

The release of descent

My understanding of faith will come to me

through a journey in the woods.

Down on my knees, I will begin digging to remember.

This is initiation.

I will dig until I come to the core

where the roots of foliage

that braid through my hair take hold;

past the layers of insects who thrive in the dark,

moist soil, along side of sleeping earthworms

and fossilized horse toes;

take hold of Persephone and drag her home.

Because I am hungry and I have a choice.

This is descent.

I will cherish the dirt on my fingers and knees,

and the blood from my hands will mix with

the ground, and I will not stop,

until I hit rock bottom, face it, pound on it,

cry to it, embrace it, curl like a fetus and

feed from it.

And Dionysus will dance with me,

twirling over every inch of it.

And I will stay in the moment,

until I am no longer at the mercy of what I bury.

Trust

Some Pheasant farmers raise their birds to eat corn

right out of their hands.

In the fall they release them into high fields,

to be hunted by men with guns.

The Pheasant, raised to trust man,

goes directly to the hunter to ask for corn.

The hunter smiles at such luck, and picks up his gun.

Children smile and wave at you.

They believe your stories and ask to hear more.

They laugh at your jokes, no matter how bad,
then follow you into your car.

My dog lies on her back with her eyes closed.

Her stomach exposed, she leans her thin

nose on my feet,

which are weapons—hidden missile men,

camouflaged guerrillas ready to leap,

stomp, kick or crunch.

But she comes when she’s called, and sits on my lap.

She doesn’t know what the possibilities are.

Words of love may slip from my lips.

Then regretting the moment they escape,

I crouch in wait; certain to be held hostage by them.

When bravery fails, I build a dam,

like a muddy beaver’s den.

With one stick at time,

I close off every possible crevice from invasion,

vandalism, and blatant forms of betrayal.

The turtle

My brother’s old friend

took up the hunting knife

and sliced the turtle’s brain.

Flicks of turtle-skin flew

but the turtle remained.

He opened his mouth

and (I know) he  cried.

My brother’s old friend

did it again,

and I turned away.

Flicks of my skin

invisible numb with pain,

tun up the stairs to my room.

Behind the door

I opened my mouth,

and I know (I remember) I cried.

The sympathetic eye

I hold a box for sympathy,

dumping it on the floor

to count in the takings.

Some days I sit with it open

like a homeless beggar on the

street, not speaking or directly

asking for change.

I have sympathetic eyes:

they do my asking for me.

Around dawn I hold up a sign that says:

“Give to those in need of a pat on the back.”

A priest walks by, telling me that,

“God is the one big sympathetic eye.”

I say, “I doubt it, but nice try.”

Policemen tell me to go home.

“Do you have a license to beg for sympathy here?”

I say, “no” just as some prostitutes walk by.

“Smile sister,” they say.

“Cops and God just don’t understand.

A pat on your back has to come from your own hand.”

The Story of the child who wouldn’t come

I can see you with pink eyes—
a curled knot in my arms.
A gurgling infant,
than all at once running,
with soft-toddler arms.

Loose curls coming in
and a mouth learning to speak.
What will you ask me,
and how will I know?

You are in all of my dreams.
A written verse and a stanza,
a story: the beginning, middle and the end.

The Priest

We were married on a ninety degree day,
in an Italian Garden with roses, steps, and pillars.
It was an opulent looking place,
grand and other-worldly.
There was a statue of a young God peeing in a pond.
I longed to be photographed in front of him with my bridesmaids,
as a joke, to snicker about later when we’d gone.

I remember that I watched you breathe,
as I listened to your vows—vows invented by someone from above,
spoken through the mouth of a man in a long robe,
who was angry at me for my distrust,
and what must have appeared to be,
my disinterest in what he loved.

He didn’t even stay for dinner,
but left abruptly when he was done.
Who could blame him?
I couldn’t even look him in the eyes.

The crap on writing

Most people
want to skip the mumbo jumbo
and just get to the point.
That’s boring—too easy.

I want the mumbo jumbo
before the point.

Most people say,
“Stop beating around the bush—just say what you mean!”

But not me.
I want to whack the crap right out of the greenery.
I want to wear it down,
to a few leaves left on the shrubbery.

Ode to a friend

Kierkegaard believed that time was spherical.

“To go forward to Christianity, one must go backward to Christ.”

We go from being today to being tomorrow,

and back to yesterday, living our lives

through memories and actions,

not a second older really,

only placing ourselves in new  experiences.

I admire this belief.

It admonishes the idea of failing at life,

of not quite being where you’d like to be,

rids the notion that success happens in any particular order,

that the only way to grow is to move forward.

When I think of friendship, of joy,

of living a life through feeling and exploring,

a life of questioning who I am, striving toward

the kind of living that allows rage

and love to exist simultaneously,

for happiness and grief to shake hands,

I have to look at history, the profound coincidences that link

souls together from a complex beginning,

an introduction through chaos,

a look in the eye that starts a forever.

I have this kind of ineffable history,

and I feel blessed that I can see in the past,

laughter and memories careen yesterday

through today,

this moment,

now,

stories so deep and rich

they are like the intricate textures in a  weaving.

Looking back to the end of the summer

I was fourteen—enraged and terrified

because I was moving away—I rode my brother’s bike

down Main street as fast as my feet could pedal.

Scared of the speed I was traveling,

I knew I would remember that moment for the rest of my life.

And I have.

This was the summer I realized you would be

my friend forever.

You made me laugh that day, despite the unknown.

Change is good you said.

Change,

Change can bring you back to where you started,

and it happens so subtly you hardly notice.

It becomes the feeling you get when you see the

sun hit a particular leaf, or in the feel of

water on your legs while wading through a stream,

or the sound of laughter in another room.

There you are: suddenly on the bike,

or in the lake, or on the street, beneath the tree.

You are, in this moment, surprised at what you remember.

And I remember you,

though I have hardly known you for fourteen years now,

through the graduations and weddings,

and children, and funerals,

over the Sundays and Mondays,

and weeks that we’ve lived as ourselves,

looking out windows, walking down streets,

working, loving, hating, remembering.

And here we are,

you and I, in this circle of time,

together with our families who we only dreamed of

fourteen years ago.

As I sit with you on your birthday,

I am remembering you right now,

and you, my friend, are not a second older.

The neighbor

She is in the yard directing the garden,

while he disputes with the neighbor

over the gap in the tire,

not amused with the witticism the neighbor offers,

he throws a quick right to the chin.

She is sharp, durable,

unremitting at the sight of blood,

the counselor-type, a calm advocate,

which leaves her in charge of negotiations.

After the war,

she returns to the lawn to consider the fence,

which he is determined to run, to curtail the neighbor’s curiosity of their perimeter.

He is sweaty with rage,

and accidentally cuts down a Holly Hock

while splicing weeds.

She is in the back by the stream,

inattentive to his blunder.

He is determined to tell her the truth,

but it is difficult to decide how.

He contemplates covering the corpse with Ivy,

but she is so discerning she will know.

He remembers her as an obsession he once had,

she remembers him as an obstacle she’s overcome.

The neighbor takes the fall.

Merciless

There are times when I miss you so,
I am certain there are screaming lunatics
pounding hammers in my head,
and whispering in voices that sound like yours.