PART II

I met an old woman at a lunch counter in Santa Rosa.
We were
waiting for a bus to Guerneville.
She ordered bologna on white bread, plain.
I had eggs and sausage.
The old woman said she lived in Georgia and when she was
young there was a ferry across the Savannah River.
It went to an island.
They picnicked there in the summertime.
There was a piano on the ferry. The boys would sing.
They had beautiful voices
        and the river was blue.
She said there was another smaller island on the 
way to their island. A lone house sat at the water's edge. There were
tall wide casements opening onto a porch on the second floor.
The ferry went by and blew its horn. A woman stepped out onto that porch with a
long scarf she waved up and down in greeting. All the other boats on the river
did likewise.
The old woman said she
once asked the ferry captain what is the meaning behind this?
He said The woman is a widow. Her husband died at sea. All the boats that pass pay
tribute. She acknowledges every one.

She was known as the Waving Girl of Savannah, Georgia.
That was long ago. She was old then. I am sure she is dead now. The ferries no 
longer use the river anyhow.

Fashioning the gods into a
cold and dangerous light, a 
dream like snow

Each year a grandmother
A pale story insisting we came this way

On a hot day, a beer and ice cream day I count the squares in the sidewalk
An old game
the mother leaning into the child singing

When she was good she was veryvery good
And when she was bad she was horrid

Save everything
As far back as you remember

The Egyptians!
left us their boy king, Tut-- his forever hard-on; his turquoise eyes.
We leave behind signs that read: Never Dig Here
We eye Mars hungrily
as England once stared across the small sea towards Ireland

The face in the moon is
Marie's

Well, the
night before Enrico Caruso sang

A gorgeous sob shattering the theatre like glass

It was April 1906
Pierre Curie left the meeting
He crossed the Rue Dauphane dreaming equations
        He wasn't watching where he was going
        The horses blinded by rain

He and Marie had just returned from Easter in the Chevreuse Valley
Everywhere they went they carried the light in their bones
        A strange terrible
        light that does not want to harm us

In San Francisco the buildings toppled
Fifty fires burned out of control
The cats ate the dead bodies
The dogs ate the cats
Not a few people ate the dogs

Egg.
Atom.
Skull.

Marie fingered the glass tube of radium in her dress pocket
like a worry bead
She worked alone in the warm rain of discovery

The horses never saw Pierre
Caruso sang
and the earth opened up
twelve times the power of Hiroshima

Singing and singing until it was filled and cracked
A cranium in 16 pieces on the Rue Dauphane.

The warrior Mars allowed mere hours between
the breakage
The warrior Mars moved away from the planet
He stepped back from the smoke and the
breakage
and laughed



In Lower Greaswood, Arizona
the old woman dreams the wolves have returned
She says to her granddaughter in
Navajo:
Leave

and points with her finger towards the
black mountain, the
Talking God

The Navajo say
when the wolves return it is the end of this
The fourth world

and some say
It is the time of the eagle

The last century for many animals

Waltz me once again around the dance floor, darlin'. I've paid the moon
to shine for you

It's the era of religion and radioactivity
I carry my house on my back like a snail
My children leave silver footprints
The fifth world is
Light
The devil with the blue dress is Marie
Her daughters migrate
Strontium
Iodine 129

bleeding into the land
The concern is gold and so they don't
watch where they're going

Radiant energy displaces matter

The San Franciscans chalk Goodbye on the broken buildings
        Goodnight Irene!
        Goodnight, Pittsburgh!

So long
        --field full of horses
        --fog on the road to Jenner
        --woman washing her hair in the sink
So long! It's been good to know you

Many tribes prophesy a
Silence coming-
        it's a secret.
        it's not in the papers.
        it's in the world.

I imagine it bursts and scatters
Its seeds like the pomegranate.

Space has a very quiet tongue.
Out the corner of my eye I see horses, a
language too pure to bear

It's a circle getting smaller and tighter
        :an old woman tells a stranger about boys with beautiful voices; the stranger
        tells others.

It's not so much the
name of the god
but the god's significance--What I imagine the god means, and,
More importantly, what I am willing to sacrifice to the god *

*The White Goddess, Robert Graves (paraphrased)