Ave atque Vale

Ruth Elaine Crawford Hobbs

27 September 1914--

8 April 2007

There Is a Poetry of Beaten Biscuits

. . . .

Notes from a Muted Trumpet

Poems

Poems are snow;
Falling, flying,
Swirling, in the night;
Melting in the sun.

A Small Town Night

The streets are lighted with the listless rays
That splotch the prickly green of deodar trees.
Jackson vine is hung across the porch
Where lights shine black against the dangling limbs.

The servants vanish into massive doors
Far at the back of yardy bulging homes.
The smell of frying ham and baking cake
Seeps out into the humid clinging night.

Women with their hair conformably set
By chatty beauty operators move
About sedately decorated rooms
While playing well their patterned pantomimes.

The tailored men are hovered in a group
As purple grapes upon a common vine.
They are the ones who eat the ham and cake
And watch the women in their stage-set rooms.

My Father's Land

The land is level many miles around Lynn Grove;
I can stand on the porch of any store
And see the houses of my kinsmen clustered in a drove
And know that clumps of trees obscure that many more.

This is the land they chose to make their heritage;
They cut the trees and underbrush and burned new ground;
They planted corn, tobacco, fruit trees on the eastern ridge;
They followed mules down long rough furrows, then back around.

From summer hay they fed their cattle in the winter night,
And burned the short-cut hickory lengths for making breads;
They tied tobacco hands when it had seasoned right
Then traded it for seeds to plant in new spring beds.

My father’s kin have used this portion of Kentucky well.
Its yield is good and back into the rich black loam
Have gone the used-up bodies of the men whose children still
Plant and harvest, die and leave their sons this home.

Your Family Tree

Look at the gray layered bark
And bulbous scars on the trunk of the tree,
Touch the deep crevices, feel
Its strength and longevity.

Come, sit in its shade,
Listen to the words of the wind
Among the dry clinging leaves
On the scaly skeletal limbs.

Follow the twisted beauty
Of its gnarled roots burrowing deep
Into the dark passages
Of a stubborn unyielding earth.

A Daughter-in-Law

There is a labor soft as muted snow.
A daughter-in-law who smoothes the blankets in
And through the night she is the one who knows
How gentle is the sleep, how cold the dark has been.

She journeyed to her husband’s kin and land
And took his aging mother for her own.
Naomi knew the love of silent sand;
It is the same as muted snow on stone.

The Bones of Recompense

I pity you who never have been wrong.
You hold your life with calculating tong
Then weigh the subject on a fine steel spring
Precision made from dies in a polished ring.

Into your measured mind has never come
The feel of deep regret, the knowing gloom
Of ravished half hours spent in smothering rain;
You have not felt that pungent pain.

I pity you, for in regret you grow.
The bones of recompense you learn to throw
Upon a heap that stacks up high to meet
The icy leaves among the bittersweet.

Steel Winged Angels

Man has contrived a machine
That can sort the mail, can glean
The facts and calculate
To the end of selecting one’s mate.

Machines of sleek looking steel,
Bright colors of green, blue or teal,
Hum a monotonous tune
As they cipher and dictate their rune.

A note of cold dependence
Shrouds each boxed-in semblance;
Steel winged angels in a slot,
Not a sinner in the lot.

The Young Men

The young men who fell in battle
Did not die.
You can hear them still in the quiet house
In the night
As the moonlight wanders in and out
Among the varied shapes.
The young men come and silently
Wander too
In and out among the shapes of men
In the night.

The young men who fell in battle
Did not die.
You can hear them still in the quiet streets
In the night,
The young men come and take their places
On the tabled roll
Of their towns and march in single file
Upon the streets
Under the clock the young men march
To silent drums.

Spring

The kitten slowly opened wide his eyes
Yawned and stretched--with long extended paws--
Then bit by bit relaxed.
He tossed his head and teased a passing butterfly.

Henry Hanes

Henry Hanes is a little man
Stooped from sitting like a stone,
Smoothed from purging out the pain
That an old man wears on his collar bone.

When the caverned night is long and damp
He pulls the moss above his head
And dreams beneath the black light lamp
Until he sleeps in nothingness.

When he awakes in his mother’s house
The lichens have sapped his soul’s remorse:
Dead birthlove cannot arouse
A clinging selfishness and curse.

After the Funeral of a Friend

To-night the sun
Seemed slow to go away
It pulled the tender green
Of leaves and twigs
Farther toward the west

The towhee lingered longer
Under the hawthorn bush
Children threw
Their balls among themselves
And screamed and ran and laughed

It was another day of death
When the earth
Reclaims
Its dusty flesh

Oklahoma Twigs

1

I went home from school
Along the board walk
With spaces between the slats of wood
Where little pools
Of stagnant red clay water
Stared back at the flat dull sky.

Making and being
A part of a town that was old
And rough as the boards
Of the walk that swayed
Resounding with thinness
At each short step.

Home from a school
Where I learned to add
And read and write
Where I learned that some people cheat
And make it seem righteous
And some people hum while painting
A home-made Christmas card.

2

Annie Becky lured us to the graveyard
Where we wound among the tombstones
And the dark green ivy runners
Planted years ago.
We found tiny lambs
With curled frozen wool
And still little faceless angels
Who were never meant to fly.

Some one had gathered bits
Of colored glass to make a lasting pall
For one small grave;
There was no name--no time--no place--

We made up stories
For the chiseled names;
We gave new life to many who had died
Long before our time.
We felt the ivy slowly creep
And curl around our toes;
We did not know
It had the bleached out veins of age.

3

Who were they?

The old woman
Who hobbled along the street
Trying to walk without pain
Because the preacher
had laid his hands on her last night
And cast the devil out;
The people shouted,
"Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"

The grown man-child
Who pushed his wagon
Filled with sweet, fresh cut sticks
Around and aroundAnd around the block.

The too-thin little girl
Who slipped outside the iron fence
To find someone to play her games
And listen to her made-up schemes.

Where did they go in the Red Fork night
When the heat and wind
Wrapped them round
Like a tight cocoon?

April Rains

The April rains
Are the crying of my soul
For a young love

That never knew
The true fulfillment
Of a ripened age;

And like a woman
Who weeps at an infant’s grave
My heart

Is always mourning
For the love that died before
Its harvest time.

Autumn

Colors creeping
Like the sinuous curving tracks
Of poison snakes;

Dead flowers
With infected petals
That droop and curl;

Grass twisting
With inflicted pain,
Brown and ill;

Leaves writhing
With over-draughts
Of aged cures;

An acrid venom:
The exquisite crime
Of autumn.

Then We Know

As the cold dark rain of November
Turns to a million white stars
Then we begin to remember

That when children race till they are panting
And their laughter is louder and long,
When oranges smell enchanting

And the popping corn tastes more crunchy,
Apples are sweet and cold
And the cedar trees are more bunchy

That grow along the road,
Then we know that Christmas is coming
And our hearts almost explode!

Christmas Love

Christmas is not the wreath on the door,
The brittle tree with a flashing light
And baubles of red, gold and glittering white;
It is not the pile of gaudy boxes
Stuck with stiff off-center bows.

Christmas is not the odor of nutmeg and ginger,
Fresh-made coffee and cardamon breads,
Turkey and ham and cake Santa Claus heads;
It is not the candles with the scent of pine
Nor the oranges pierced with balls of cloves.

Christmas is old friends and old lovers
Holding hands and kissing gently;
Christmas is new friends and new lovers
Knowing the first warm glow of fondness;
Christmas is feeling the presence of God
And sharing His holy gift of loving.

The Laughter in a Life

With his loud laughter ringing
Across the fields of West Kentucky
He strode along the rows
Of tall tobacco plants
Touching each pungent leaf
With his hard caressing hands.
Through dusk and dark and on into the night
His laughter roamed above the black loose soil.

He drove his mules to county fairs
To sales and contests of endurance;
He traded flesh for flesh
And laughed while telling of the trades
He made to his advantage.
And time wore on and on.

In the back of his black caverned eyes
The creases of his mind
Compelled him to minute things.
He grew to whittling little mules
From hickory sticks and walnut limbs;
He never thought of county fairs, tobacco plants,
Or how the rain was washing arsenic from the leaves.
He only smiled while whittling little mules.

On an Alley Corner

Your eyes are cold and dim
Like frozen flesh on a glacier rim.
Your smile is keen as a steel knife
Like a madman cursing his crazy wife.

Your hope is fire that is tired and ill,
That hisses but never eats the chill
From your skin tight ribs concealed with thrift
Behind the ragged blessing of a gift.

Your wish is maddening want for food,
For bright reflections on polished wood,
For a house with a thousand rooms and halls,
And lamps of frozen trumpet calls.

Ellene

Ellene has lived her life from Lent to Lent
In selfishness that she will not repent.
She spreads her passion like a gusty wind
Which recklessly tears off the tender limbs
That grow for summer shade when sharp sun rays
Are piercing on the dry and listless days.

Ellene is never hampered by the truth.
Her fabricated tales will burn like smooth
Bright yellow maple leaves or like the red
Of slender sassafras in early fall.
She does not fear the hurt her tales will cause;
It never matters; she must have applause.

After brittle winter with its show
Of sparkling light on ice, the biting snow,
The Lenten season comes. She buys a coat
Of strict respectability and wraps
It closely round her as a penitent;
Then burns the coat at midnight after Lent.

Reality

I made a necklace from an ancient mold
Of clover pearls and emerald chains,
A bracelet of dangling dandelion gold
And rings with rosy-tinted veins.

I cut a hollow reed, then blew
A song with arabesque so sweet.
I put a stone in each thin shoe
So I could walk the common street.

The Final Part

I am a part of you
And yet I do not know the whole.
My hands
Reflect your hands
In the hot still water
Of a summer pool
I grope for tinkering tools
And feathers
From the right sized bird
To oil the tiny springs
Of clocks
That tick the days
Away
And know that you
Are doing this
With me
Because I am a part of you.

You had no hatred
Of a living thing
Only a hurt
When the wound
Was from the kin
And I must carry
That same wound
Which will not heal.

I touch the tinsel
Of a brittle tree
Piled with gifts
I know you gave;
I hear the laughter
When too many scarves
Appear
And watch the eyelids
Almost close
Over your brown-green eyes.
I too am proud
Of those who are a part of us.

And then the time comes
That you must go
And much of me
Goes with you
I know not where.
I ask
When I must go
Will the final rending part
Be as you went
To heal the whole?

Eighty-Three

What does it mean to be eighty-three
When the woods are quiet
With nothing but snow, the moon
And the half black night?

With a wish
Turn a lake
Into a huge arena
And skate with the grace
Of a young ballerina
While the trees stand stark
In black lace admiration. No animal
Watches or hears
The gnashing of skates;
No eyes, no breath
But those of the skater
And the specks of the milky way.

The moon remembers; then fades
Behind a floating mound
And slowly pulls the curtain of dark
On another dream.
But as tonight, tomorrow
Or any day
It is an adventure
To be eighty-three.

The Way to Golgotha

Slowly Jesus had gone
Through the halls of the court
Past the taunts of the mob
Past the tears of the few.

Soldiers torturing tired
Lashed Him a little less
Near the Place of the Skull
Near the Hill of the Dead.

Men with hate in their hearts
Pushed Him down on the Cross
Nailed His feet on the post
Nailed His hands through the palms.

Raising the Cross upright
Hard with a chug it fell
Into the middle hole
Into the hard still earth.

Jesus, Nazareth’s son,
Left alone on the Cross
Cried in horrible pain
Cried from agony’s depth;

Sacrificed to redeem
Whosoever believes
Christ is the Son of God
Christ is the King of Kings.

Conformity

The thick black robe he threw about
His shoulders just before he spoke
Had thin gray worms of crawling doubt
Within the lining of the cloak.

The sting of honeybees almost
Pierced the center of his spine;
He tripped upon the hem; a ghost
Clutched his feet like an ivy vine.

He was afraid to preach his creed,
Convention might defy its norms;
So he wrapped his soul in a spider web
And buried it deep in ghostly forms.

Her Cup

Her life was a cup of misty water
Rounded over the top:
A gray tin cup with measurements
Bulging from the sides.

Ghosts

The ghosts of love
Hang loosely from the trees
And with each faint light breeze
Swing gently, silently.

The ghosts of love
Are swinging sweetness
Of remembered blooms, stirring,
Flying, scattering petals on the mind.

The Reception

For one brief moment television
Showed the Rivera Murals
On the walls of the Fountain Room
In the Detroit Institute of Art.
There was a reception;
Glasses were glistening,
Voices were brittle and harsh,
The fountain continued to rise gently
And fall softly.
While women in brilliantly colored dresses
Tried to dominate the scene
The terra cotta figures
Around the walls
Told their story in rounded shapes
And a child was born of the earth
But no one cared;
No one followed the story
No one wanted to know
The conclusion.

The Auction

The auctioneer is chanting while
The people pick and chatter over
Relics; weighing with each other
What a vase is worth, a table.

30--I’m bid 30--40--40--
Who’ll bid 40?

Women feeding fretful babies,
Men comparing crops and weather;
Little boys who endlessly wander
Through the labyrinth of legs.

40--I have 40--50--50--
Who’ll bid 50?

Then the story winds among them
How the woman had a daughter
Who was killed. No one was sentenced;
It was hushed; the court dismissed it.

50--I have 50--50--50--
Sold for 50.

Call your name out to the clerk,
Put your name down on the ledger.
Tell the people how you bartered
For a bowl of thistle pattern that was old.

Ladies, gents, I have a pitcher,
Will you start the bid?

Yes, a pitcher, then a table,
Now a bed and next the curtains.
Tear the whole apart with barter,
Wager, gossip, and desire.

A quarter, folks, I have a quarter,
30--30--

Piece by piece a house is plundered
And a life is sold and scattered.
Sold to strangers for a price
By a man who chants a song.

A Swamp

There is a repulsive beauty
In the thick green waters of a swamp,
Where turtles glide
And pull themselves upon a log and lie
In slimy languor
In the humid sultry heat.

The green flecked snakes
Move noiselessly along while hunting
Brilliant bugs
And gray mosquitoes bred in stench and bogs.
The frogs lie quietly
Upon a cold slick stone and wait for night
When each kind gives himself to feed another.

No One Before

Can you tell
a girl of twenty
That you remember
how it was
And how it will be
when she is fifty?

She knows she is
the first to keep
Companionship with
seers and saints,
Feel the bursting blood
that comes with tender loving,
Run the brilliant road of
planned ambition;
No one before has
known such expectancy.

Her eyes are glazed
with ego’s glory;
Why should she care
what fifty is like
When she is
only twenty?

Dreams

Dreams--spiders--filament the length
of here up to the moon then
dip: the thread has specks
of coal soot

Poison green of deep and holy China
just today I promised jade
to fill the gap from here to heaven
set in gold from cooling Colorado caverns
raucous beatings on a battered drum
tapped out rhythms by a shiny
patent-leather toe

Blue hose
bluer specks
red blue--green purple

Then the thunder boasts
after lightning has performed
scattering specks of smeary dust
down the span of one long dream

Perfect Precision

The perfect precision of three trumpet players
Dipping quickly in velvet sound
Sketching across the mellow moon
The etherized tracing of minds.

A white tailed rabbit
Hops across the snow
Leaving its tiny indentations
For a while--
The falling snow lines each small track
With silent stars
And hides the path it took.

The blast of triple tonguing
Calls the glare of noon time sun
To pierce its pointed beams
Into the veins of the pulpy plants
And ruthlessly to drain
The moisture from the green.

On a long sustained low note
A little girl with smooth hands
Reaches up to curl her fingers round the arm
Of a faltering old man
Who gives the love she wants.

The trumpeters play on with sharp edged melody;
A thousand notes are blown upon the wind,
The music stops
And each one lays his trumpet down.
Through the haze of transposition
Each becomes again any one along the street.

An Evensong

My candles weep
Wax tears
While I
Lie in their pale light
Alone.