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Article # : 15385 

Section : THE ARTS
Issue Date : 12 / 1989  347 Words
Author : Jean Emerson
Jean Emerson is a California-based poet whose latest book of poems, Not Alone, was published last month.

       The Grandmother Books
       
       I am driven into this small corner of my life
       Forced to steal these thin morning hours
       I listen to the warm purr of the refrigerator
       And unfold like a rain lily after a summer squall
       
       I remember the circle of smooth black birds
       Feel the updraft and the recurve of their white wing tips
       Long for the recent history
       The tumbling grey rocks of the Pedernales
       The fragile five finger daisy
       with its circle of chalk white petals traced in violet
       No longer than your thumbnail
       but so tough its fine roots shatter the limestone bluffs
       I cling to the long slanting memories of the old times
       Catch the blue flash of the NRA eagle
       nailed to the shuttered gasoline station
       The iridescence of a dragonfly hanging
       over grass washed flat by last night's flood
       I hear Charlie singing "It ain't going to rain no more"
       to the thrum of Model A truck tires against tarvey roadbeds
       on the way to the mortuary to pick up rented ... (1995 of 2319 Characters)
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