Author: Grace Mattern

Grace Mattern is a poet, writer, artist, mother, grandmother, partner, friend, community activist, gardener, triathlete, hiker and for 30 years was the Executive Director of the NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Her chapbook Fever of Unknown Origin was published in 2001 and her full-length poetry book The Truth About Death was published in 2012.
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Haiku LXXXII

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Central Park picnic
Flowers families tree buds
Winter walks away.

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National Poetry Month

Knopf will email you a poem a day during April, National Poetry Month. (April is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month, but that’s another story all together.) I’ve been signed up for the poem-a-day for years, and in the past generally felt too harried to read the poems — too much email to deal with at work, and I didn’t want to come home and read more on my home email account. But now I have gmail, which I get on my Droid and have set up on my igoogle homepage, which I check a few times during the day, needing brief respites from the intensity of focus I maintain during work.  And there is my gmail, and there are the poems from Knopf, so this month I’ve been taking a few moments and reading them. I’m trying to learn how to take breaks because I’m about to take a bit of a break for good.

Yesterday’s poem was “Wellfleet Shabbat” by Marge Piercy, a fiction writer I’ve admired but I’ve never been a fan of her poetry. This poem confirmed why. The poem is over-written and in spite of its central metaphor, unimaginative in its language. I sent it to David to read and see if he agreed. Not only did he agree, he wrote a brilliant Haikuification in response. So, below is the Haiku and the poem. See what you think. Sincere apologies to Marge Piercy should it ever come to her attention that I blogged about not liking her poem. I devoured her novels in the 70’s.

David’s Haiku

Moon never meets sea
No hawk no red no muscle
Only Shekinah

Wellfleet Shabbat by Marge Piercy

The hawk eye of the sun slowly shuts.
The breast of the bay is softly feathered
dove grey. The sky is barred like the sand
when the tide trickles out.

The great doors of Shabbat are swinging
open over the ocean, loosing the moon
floating up slow distorted vast, a copper
balloon just sailing free.

The wind slides over the waves, patting
them with its giant hand, and the sea
stretches its muscles in the deep,
purrs and rolls over.

The sweet beeswax candles flicker
and sigh, standing between the phlox
and the roast chicken. The wine shines
its red lantern of joy.

Here on this piney sandspit, the Shekinah
comes on the short strong wings of the seaside
sparrow raising her song and bringing
down the fresh clean night.

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Helen’s Crocuses

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I wrote this poem many years ago, but these photos, and this poem, still tell a story worth repeating about a remarkable woman.

Helen’s Crocuses

Earlier than we dare to hope
for any native color beyond
the hard buds of maples sheening
the hills with faint rose, the cupped
crocuses shoot up yellow,
purple, white —  orange hearts
studding Helen’s front yard.

Helen was a loose farmer — what bloomed
bloomed wherever; greenhouse customers
would leave a note and payment
clothespin-clipped to a board
by the broken door; eggs were sold
from an old refrigerator propped outside,
cartons stacked next to the change box.

So when the blood blossomed
in her brain as she drove to pick up
pig scraps from the restaurant,
she just pulled to the shoulder, planted
her foot on the brake and waited.
Three seasons later, hardy and startlingly
new, here again, her crocuses.

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Shehechiyanu

“Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam Shehehchiyahnu vekiyamanu vehegianu lazman ha-zeh,” I recited to myself, when I came out on to the back deck, the first morning this year it’s been warm enough to sit in the sun and drink my cappuccino.  David shoveled the snow off the deck yesterday, just so we could do this, knowing the forecast was for a sunny day, wanting to be out here without our feet in snow.

What is the Shehechiyanu blessing, and what does it mean?  Literally, it means “blessed are You, our God, Ruler of the universe, who has kept us alive, and sustained us, and enabled us to reach this moment.”

The Shehechiyanu is a Jewish blessing that thanks God for bringing us to a moment of joy and renewal in our lives.  It’s way to stop and cherish a moment, particularly in the cycle of time we experience as our lives move with the rhythm of seasons and yearly holidays and events.  The Shehechiyanu is recited on Jewish holidays, when a ritual is observed for the first time during a year, or for the first time in a person’s life, or when something happens for the first time in the year.

Besides saying the Sheheckiyanu at holidays and festivals, Eric always recited the blessing the first time he went kayaking in a new year, at the first snowfall, the first cross country ski, the first fresh peas from the garden, the first swim in Squam Lake, the first fresh corn, any moment that was a blessing to be able to experience again.  And how right he was to celebrate all those moments of return and renewal, because he got fewer than the normal share, living a relatively short life.

Two weeks ago Emilio was named in our Temple, and he was given Eric’s Hebrew name — Yedidya.  Friend of God.  The Rabbi had asked Adrienne and Matt to talk about the person Emilio was named for, and what traits they hope Emilio will carry into the world from him.  Adrienne talked about a number of Eric’s traits she hopes Emilio will have, but she also talked about how she hopes Emilio will live his life.  “When my father was very sick, he said, ‘If I have to die, I know I’ve had a good life.  I have no regrets.’  I wish that for Emilio,” Adrienne said.  “That he’ll live a life that will allow him to look back and have no regrets.”

Celebrating moments of blessing and renewal is a path to such a life.

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Early April Saturday

I shouldn’t be surprised by April behavior, but every year I am, again.  I expect warm, still days, with sun and no wind.  I expect to be planting spinach and peas and turning my compost.  I expect to be drinking my morning cappuccino on the back deck, and sitting on the front porch in the evening sun.

Instead, we got about 8 inches of snow yesterday, that compacted down to a solid 3 or 4 inch crusty layer on everything, including the garden bed I’d envisioned turning over, fertilizing and planting at some point this weekend.  The sun is in and out today, but the wind is still chilly, and periodically dark clouds come by and some type of semi-frozen precipitation sheets down, like a prankster in the sky is hurling ice just for fun.

But coming back from doing errands earlier this afternoon, I could see a solid patch of Northwood Lake where the ice has moved off shore a good hundred feet or more, and the water was dark blue and sparkling in the sun.   Jeweled water, banded by receding ice, April at its best.