May 14, 2020
“I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?”
This quote by Emily Dickinson topped the short bio Maureen O’Connor provided me for this posting. Why is she “nobody?” Well, she just isn’t. There are so many good poets in the world whose work rarely or never sees the light of day. Buffalo poet, O’Connor, may be one of them simply because she has chosen not to spend time submitting her work for publication. Fortunately for me, I heard her read before the Big Bug hit the world and asked her to send me some poems to include on WordTemple.
O’Connor’s first poem was published in a Kenmore/Tonawanda schools anthology when she was 11 years old. Two other poems were published in anthologies in the 1990s and now, after retiring from the US Customs Service in the port of Buffalo after 35 years of hard work, she is back to writing. Yay!
In speaking of her writing practice, she says: I have no writing practice or discipline, no sacred place dedicated to writing. Sometimes I wake up with lines wanting a poem. Words, phrases, occasionally whole thoughts materialize from the silences in life. If I’m lucky, they are captured. If I’m really lucky, they become poems.
“I don’t write about politics, although I’m political. I don’t write about current events. World events need time to be digested, and distance for perspective because of their significance can pale and fade. Unless something timeless in them can be teased out and applied universally. Personal events, though, often need therapy or even just require sharing, which writing can provide. Road trips, family (good, bad, ugly), dreams, health, aging, memories. If my therapy or sharing resonates with another, then I am pleased. Other than that, I just write, now and then, because the words say I must.”
Here are two poems by Maureen O’Connor. Please feel free to post comments after reading them.
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Maidenhead Revised: A Hyman Hymn
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Much of history depended on
a thin veil of skin
whether or not penetrated
by the sanctioned member
at the appointed time and place
.
Treaties were made of it
Nations rose from it
provided the bride’s blood
spotted the wedding night’s sheets
.
The terrible mystery women bear
because we carry
our sex deep within
not dangling precariously
out of control
.
Science doesn’t know what the hymen’s for
Evolutionary vestige
from before we stood upright
our sex more exposed
to each other
to the elements
to the earth
Perhaps
.
Medicine tells us
it’s no proof of virginity
as culture and religion assert
We should mourn the girls
banished or killed
for their fathers’ honor
for lacking purity’s proof
.
I never lost my virginity
as if it were a thing to lose
or a thing to hold
like breath, or spite
.
I knew exactly where it was
would not hold it like breath
and turn blue
in defiance of nature
Unlike the onset of my fertility
this I had control over
so
.
I welcomed the warm entrance
trusting the impossibly green eyes
my fists full of his long dark hair
this musician, bass player
with knowledge and rhythm
in his finger tips
.
I saw the silent fireworks
moved to their bursting
celebrating what bodies
together do
what minds together know
.
I regret nothing except
not keeping the love poems
he left layered among my
bras and panties in their drawer
and tucked into the toes
of the shoes on my closet floor
.
I sometimes regret
when wistfulness overcomes
not going to New Zealand with him
where we’d be well paid
to raise children and sheep
I didn’t mind the idea of
moving, or even the sheep
it was the children
that long ago paused
and corrected me
.
a small regret
a larger gratitude
.
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Mennonites on the Beach
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Some things need to go together
This piece was three in my head
now like the trinity, it is one
It’s what happens when you write
in your mind while driving through
the hills and curves of Appalachia
.
You pass one church town
wonder if diversity to them
is at least two churches
of different denominations
and what if one is Catholic
or even a Temple
.
You watch clouds ahead
some not so subtle in their dress grays
scraping hill tops
breaking open blisters of rain
You pull over at the rest stop
take their picture, then drive on
.
You see the literal light
at the end of the tunnel
through that mountain in Pennsylvania
worrying about the truck
tailgating you on its way
to a Home Depot somewhere
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You turn off satellite radio
even though you can get Public Radio
and BBC News the entire trip
don’t even play the CDs
carefully selected as traveling soundtrack
because road noise gives a
rhythm to your thoughts
.
You think about your body
that it says No to your mind
so often lately, so loudly
wondering how many
trips like this
you’ll be able to make
.
You think about serial killers
all truck drivers are suspect
You never thought about
serial killing truck drivers
when you were younger
not that you’re afraid now
just that you never
gave thought to fear then
.
You think about the Mennonites on the beach
you’d seen them there last time at Cape May
Men sporting male privilege
in jeans and checked short-sleeved shirts
Women plain, modest in ankle length
pastel dresses, sheer caps
over their bound up hair
.
Even the little girls, in long dresses
calf-deep in the ocean
their boy counterparts in shorts and Ts.
You think of how those skirts
would weigh them down to the depths
Ophelias with braids down their backs
.
You know Modesty lights in the eyes
of those tempted, unable or unwilling
to curb their primal urges
in the feminine presence
.
You shake your fist figuratively
at the clear sky, intake sharply
the salted air each wave deposits
on the shore, dig your toes
into the sand centuries built up
.
You want to ask them
Am I not modest in jeans
and T-shirt, size large
Hair free to knot and snarl
in this off-shore wind
Am I not plain enough
in my freedom
then you remember
you are old
past being tempting
or tempted
.
You watch those little girls and boys
grab plastic pails and shovels
dig into wet sand
build castles
.
You watch the jean and checked shirt
men fly kites in the same wind
that whips your hair
.
You hear the women laugh
with each other, the same way
you laugh with women friends
recognizing the confidences
.
You re-mind yourself
talk unflinchingly to your bad self by name
“O’Connor
shut up you judgmental bitch,
everyone enjoys a day at the beach”
.
You think more on it
that we’re really all turtle hatchlings
making our separate ways
over the sands, dodging hungry birds
to our first homes in the sea.
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