Class of 2011

In June, in the tobacco fields of my youth,
the strongest one, my mom, would keep hoeing
the longest row
never upending the curved spine
till the edge of the line and back to the next one,
seeding in my young mind
the constancy of effort
that birthing must achieve,
that rounding the circle
is the absolute endeavor of creation.

Breathless, I arrive yet again,
in the longest days of the year
and another school year comes to an end
and young lives have plowed new earth into their own circles, rings of growth.

I inhale deep the headiness of  graduation,
like nicotine that fixes the arc of tobacco in my body
and my barren womb that cradled a child not
is cast again in the substitute mother role.
Another class is delivered to the world.


Maria Ling

Today is the 26th anniversary of meeting Steve

Northen Light

I flew away the whirlpool of loss
and spread weak wings against blue winds
homing to a nest
that I dreamt in vivid yellows and green
of my fields of sun.
And you became the northen gale
that carried me away
and the dreams iced over
in the igloo of our love.
You held me high, to puff my feathers
and I changed course
and left you behind
and watched you die
for the flight was always mine alone.
And I gathered your broken stone walls
and shattered branches
and fashioned myself a house
to shelter new love.
And the croaking of the frog
that feasted in your ashes,
remind me that
I had kissed my prince.

Maria Ling

Crush

Maybe my limbs are made
mostly for decoration,
like the way I feel about
persimmons. You can't
really eat them. Or you want to. If you grab
the soft side with your fist
it somehow feels funny,
like you've been here
before and uncomfortable,
too, like you'd rather
squish it between your teeth
impatiently, before spitting
the soft parts back up
to linger on the tongue like
burnt sugar or guilt.
For starters, it was all an accident, you cut the right branch
and a sort of light
woke up underneath,
and the indelible fruit
grew dark and needy.
Think crucial hanging.
Think crayon orange.
There is one low, leaning
heart-shaped globe left
and dearest, can you
tell, I am trying
to love you less

Maria

The Temple Of My Peculiar

Flint eyes, I gaze into oceans uncharted
focusing on the spartan profile
Now that I am older,  I dream of mere moments,
I plan no years ahead, I anticipate joy in every turn.
As if the ball of yarn is visibly ending
and the sweater will never be finished,
and the memories of wearing it
in all future occasions will never be recalled..
And I bite into the grapefruit, bursting with bittersweet, astringent sunshine,
coral dream that my life has been,
never the apple I imagined it to be,
hapless Eve.

Maria Ling

Full Circle

Our lives have been tilled by many hands-
parents, teachers, circumstance
accidental careless fate carved rows
at some points straight
at others, not so much
the furrows casting off -
and somehow, with the care and the neglect,
the rain and drought, the sun, and all of it
we find that we have made a life,
an unexpected one, perhaps,
with roughness where we might have wished
a smoother way
and yet, we have grown strong somehow -
the scars, the roughened skin,
regrets grown in to be the framework for our world
standing on the crest of the century
stepping down the leeward side
we start again
and work the field ourselves

by Ruth Hunter