There’s the speech of a vibrant life here that guides us wittily yet tenderly through all kinds of stirring images – from barely disguised anarchy in choir practice to the stirring times of family dinners, and even out into early morning swims, as well as the personally current strife of war in Iraq. Time and again here Michele Aynesworth shows us how responsive she is to the rhythms of an ever-moving world.

── James Hoggard

Poet Laureate of Texas, 2000

 

 

The magic and power of  Aynesworth’s poetry reside in her ability to see and hear all worlds: those that can be seen and those that cannot be seen, those that can be heard and those that cannot be heard. In this poetry we meet characters who communicate their human experience in a constant flow of time, conveyed to us in the music and rhythm of words. The space and time are Aynesworth’s, but they are also ours, a space and time in which we can not only exist, but also be.

 

── Horacio Peña 

Winner of the Rubén Darío International Poetry Award

 

 

                 Babylonian Blues


My brother Joe’s gone to fight in Iraq,
With tanks in the desert, choppers on the tarmac,
Oh Lord, is he ever comin’ back.

Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Nineveh,
ancient cities of the two rivers
Tigris and Euphrates
that flowed once through
Sumer and Babylon
and now irrigate Iraq--

for millenia
clay tablets
telling stories
of creation,
civilization,
rebellion and floods,
death and rebirth,
lay buried under your sands,
waiting for the patient hands
of archaeologists.
How many more stories lie buried there?
How many more stories are yet to be written there?

Sandstorm came, it was the worst in years,
Rain an’ grit, smoke an’ tears,
Darkness all around, seemed like Hell was near.

 

In old Sumer, now Iraq,
Inanna,
a.k.a Ishtar and Isis,
Queen of Heaven and Earth,
Goddess of Love and Beauty,
managed to trick old Enki,
the sea-god,
into giving her guardianship
of the me,
mysterious powers
of leadership, priesthood,
fertility,
art and emotion
and good cooking.

She descended into darkness,
into the lapis lazuli kingdom of death,
and returned to tell about it.

Shawna, Ed, Joseph, Miller, and James,
They been captured, just gave their names,
Oh Lord, will they ever be the same.

In old Sumer, now Iraq,
young king Gilgamesh,
part-human, part-god,
defeated Enkidu,
his wild alter-ego,
defeated the mountain-dwelling giant,
Humbaba,
defied Inanna
and the Bull of Heaven,
then went in search of eternal youth.

He lost his chance to live forever,
but the epic tells us,
“In Uruk he built walls,
a great rampart,
and the temple of blessed Eanna for the god of the firmament Anu,
and for Ishtar the goddess of love.
Look at it still today:
the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper;
and the inner wall, it has no equal.
Touch the threshold, it is ancient.
Approach Eanna the dwelling of Ishtar, our lady of love and war …
Climb upon the wall of Uruk;
walk along it, I say; regard the foundation terrace
and examine the masonry:
is it not burnt brick and good?
The seven sages laid the foundations.”

Walls are fallin’, water is slack,
People are dyin’, rations sidetracked
Oh, Lord, can we ever bring ‘em back?

The Bible also speaks of this land,
of Shinar, a.k.a. Babylonia,
and the building of the tower of Babel:
“And the whole earth was of one language,
and of one speech.
And it came to pass,
as the sons of Noah journeyed from the east,
that they found a plain in the land of Shinar;
and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another,
Go to, let us make brick,
and burn them thoroughly.
And they had brick for stone,
and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to,

let us build us a city and a tower,
whose top may reach unto heaven;
and let us make us a name,
lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower,
which the children of men builded.
And the Lord said, Behold,
the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do;
and now nothing will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do.
Go to, let us go down,
and there confound
their language,
that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:
and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel;
because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth:
and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.”
(Genesis 11:1-9)

Too many tongues are spoken in this land,
Too many stories, too much sand,
Oh, Lord, how can we ever understand?

Now the Lord said to Abraham of Ur in Babylonia, now Iraq,
“'Go forth from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father's house,
To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed'" (Genesis 12:1-3).
Basra, Umm Qasr, An Nasiriyah,
Arabs and Kurds, Sunni and Shi'a,

Oh Lord, when will their children be free?

 

           A Gathering of Spirits: The Women

They visit me in dreams . . .

Ellen

Ellen came first, in her granny clothes:
black high-button shoes, a homemade dress,
and permed white curls.
She could wring a hen’s neck,
pluck its damp, smelly feathers,
and have it on to boil in no time flat.
Then she’d take me with her to the barn
to watch her ring the changes on her milk cow’s teats
– it’s harder than you’d think –
letting me drink the warm sweet foam straight from the cow.
After, we’d take turns churning butter
to spread on light, airy biscuits big as saucers.

No innocent Eve,
she’d casually whack the rattlers with a hoe
as we toured her vegetable garden.

At the age of ninety she got her picture in the paper
–March Queen of Shady Acres–
the image of health and sanity,
leading some to ask would she ever die.
At last she fell and broke her crown
and cussed up a blue streak, having found
the soft spot in her Baptist shell.

Mama G

Next came Mama G,
with her warm chuckle
like the cooing of doves.

The hum of her Hoover,
her gleaming silverware,
the coolness of her rooms,
her piano’s ivory invitation
defied the world outside
of scorched red earth and horny toads.

She loved company, pastries and bridge,
taking tricks and keeping score.
One day she took the smart way out and ran her car into a ditch.
She’s happy now. No more ditches to think about.
Her spirit’s here full-bodied in my dreams:
short and round and soft with blue-rinse hair
and dimpled cheeks, her tongue flicking over moist pink lips,
jeweled slippers on her feet, an apron round her waist,
flour dust falling from her finger tips.

Rowena

Another’s soon to join our little band:
Rowena, gypsy mother, who taught me to see,
she of eerie sight and fearful artistry.
Through evening mist, bringing visions,
her letters would dart swift and lemonade.

Photos from the 'thirties
show her glamorously groomed.
She designed her clothes and herself, too.
Raised in a farmer’s shanty,
she became a teacher
who liked to say “I shan’t”
and lord it over waiters.

Last night a dream had me judging art.
The winner was a portrait of Rowena
when her hair was reddish brown,
like her father’s. You could just make out
above her head, glimmering in the dark,
a pale pink castle and a slice of moon.

Red Madonna (I once wrote), your beveled song
rings hard and clear, tempered on the ruby’s edge.
And I have learned from this gathering of souls
to sing your end.