{"id":1213,"date":"2008-04-08T18:26:01","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T18:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2008-04-08T18:26:01","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T18:26:01","slug":"two-poems-by-mira-coleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-poems-by-mira-coleman\/","title":{"rendered":"Two poems by Mira Coleman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recess<\/span>


That clamouring hour<\/span>
in the yard where the standpipe<\/span>
rose out of cement<\/span>
is glued in a cavity<\/span>
behind my eyes<\/span>
even now.<\/span>
When, between the cow pasture<\/span>
on the east side<\/span>
and the linked fence to the west,<\/span>
all meaning and order was contained:<\/span>
We would gallop the perimeter,<\/span>
as pintos, flipping up our pine tails<\/span>
unbridled and wild, loud whinnies<\/span>
making us real, pawing dust<\/span>
with hooves of<\/span>
cloth sneakers <\/span>
out beyond the slide <\/span>
trying to escape <\/span>
that corral of knowing<\/span>
the bell would ring,<\/span>
when the teacher with <\/span>
the permanent boil on her chin<\/span>
would come out and take<\/span>
our tails.<\/span>


~ ~ ~ ~ ~<\/span>


Bass Waves <\/span>


My father taught me to cast <\/span>
a fishing  line, <\/span>
unhook a silver scup,<\/span>
keep a good lure<\/span>
and make it last<\/span>
out there in the harbor,<\/span>
at the edge of a dock.<\/span>

He\u2019d say waves out by Eustis Rock<\/span>
at sunset meant the bass were in: <\/span>
\u201cbass waves\u201d he\u2019d say, mirth in his eye, <\/span>
handing me the spyglass<\/span>
as if it would seal my faith.<\/span>
I was thirty before I learned<\/span>
there was no such thing,<\/span>
just old wakes<\/span>
from boats gone by.<\/span>

In August, the pogies came,<\/span>
chased in by the bigger blues, <\/span>
sudden fish in the channel.<\/span>
He\u2019d chew the soft side of his cheek, <\/span>
determined and patient  <\/span>
as he took a rod out to the dock <\/span>
and cast that clear rubber minnow<\/span>
again and again.  <\/span>

Later, he\u2019d play the uke and spoons <\/span>
and sing a low harmony <\/span>
when my brother came<\/span>
and no one really knew<\/span>
how hard my mother worked<\/span>
to ration his whiskey down<\/span>
in that big shingle-house<\/span>
on a grassy bluff<\/span>
lit like a ship<\/span>
on a late summer night,<\/span>
full like a vault of memory: <\/span>

Of fish, in a sautee, and glads in a jug,<\/span>
of cribbage and cards and very good gin<\/span>
in the usual din of guests<\/span>
from all over the world.<\/span>

No one knew how hard he tried<\/span>
there <\/span>
at the edge of a world <\/span>
where the bass waves came in <\/span>
just wetting the red-legged dock.<\/span>



\u2022 Mira Coleman writes from Western Maine, was first published in 1975 in <\/span>Flowering After Frost, An Anthology of Contemporary New England Poets<\/span> (Branden, Boston). She is a retired Massachusetts probation officer. <\/span>Bass Waves<\/span> was first published in the February 2008 issue of the <\/span>Daily Bulldog LLC<\/span> (Farmington, Maine).<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RecessThat clamouring hourin the yard where the standpiperose out of cementis glued in a cavitybehind my eyeseven now.When, between the cow pastureon the east sideand the linked fence to the west,all meaning and order was contained:We would gallop the perimeter,as pintos, flipping up our pine tailsunbridled and wild, loud whinniesmaking us real, pawing dustwith hooves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}