Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Trapeze and Doors of My Heart by Poet, Deborah Digges



Trapeze
by Deborah Digges

See how the first dark takes the city in its arms
and carries it into what yesterday we called the future.

O, the dying are such acrobats.
Here you must take a boat from one day to the next,

or clutch the girders of the bridge, hand over hand.
But they are sailing like a pendulum between eternity and evening,

diving, recovering, balancing the air.
Who can tell at this hour seabirds from starlings,

wind from revolving doors or currents off the river.
Some are as children on swings pumping higher and higher.

Don't call them back, don't call them in for supper.
See, they leave scuff marks like jet trails on the sky.

from:  Trapeze

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Doors of My Heart
by Deborah Digges

The wind blows
through the doors of my heart.
It scatters my sheet music
that climbs like waves from the piano, free of the keys.
Now the notes stripped, black butterflies,
flattened against the screens.
The wind through my heart
blows all my candles out.
In my heart and its rooms is dark and windy.
From the mantle smashes birds’ nests, teacups
full of stars as the wind winds round,
a mist of sorts that rises and bends and blows
or is blown through the rooms of my heart
that shatters the windows,
rakes the bedsheets as though someone
had just made love. And my dresses
they are lifted like brides come to rest
on the bedstead, crucifixes,
dresses tangled in trees in the rooms
of my heart. To save them
I’ve thrown flowers to fields,
so that someone would pick them up
and know where they came from.
Come the bees now clinging to flowered curtains.
Off with the clothesline pinning anything, my mother’s trousseau.
It is not for me to say what is this wind
or how it came to blow through the rooms of my heart.
Wing after wing, through the rooms of the dead
the wind does not blow. Nor the basement, no wheezing,
no wind choking the cobwebs in our hair.
It is cool here, quiet, a quilt spread on soil.
But we will never lie down again.

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"Poet, Deborah Digges, a renowned poet and memoirist whose work often sprang from private adversity, died on April 10, 2009 near Amherst, Mass., apparently in a suicide. She was 59 and lived in Amherst.

Ms. Digges apparently jumped from an upper level of the Warren P. McGuirk Alumni Stadium, on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  She was found on the ground outside the stadium and taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., where she was pronounced dead."  from:  "The New York Times", 4/16/09

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9 comments:

Wine and Words said...

I loved Doors of my Heart! The wind and the sheet music. Was just listening to a song this morning...

"I can hear a gentle rustle as the curtains move about, but the strain and daily hustle tend to drown you out. I cannot see your presence but I know where you have been and I long to be a feather at the mercy of the wind."

Love you sweet lady.

Marion said...

Yes, Annie, amazingly beautiful words. Love & Blessings!

Karen said...

I love this woman's poetry. What a sadness that she was tortured enough to end her life.

Kay said...

beautiful poetess....sad ending.

Kelly said...

I loved the first poem, Marion, and the accompanying photo.

Such a sad ending to her life.

Rick said...

Marion-Well, if you're gonna jump, Rhiannon would be a good theme song. How haunting for it to play. The problem with toying with these thoughts, even in poetry, is that once fed, the monster grows and grows until consuming the inventor. This has put me in a strange mood. As Stevie's music always does. Love you, Marion
Later~rick

Serena said...

That is purely lovely, which makes her sad end so much more tragic.

Margaret Pangert said...

Such stark imagery. You can almost feel her "quiet desperation leading to the grave with the song still in her." Very sad. The first anniversary of her death.

Marion said...

Yes, my friends, her poetry is sad. I was feeling blue when I posted this. I don't know about y'all, but I love poetry that fits my mood, be it up or down. Do any of y'all find that to be true for you?

Rick, I swear, I think that playlist of mine has a brain/heart. It scares me sometimes which of the 107 songs comes on when I log in to my blog! LOL!

I don't know if it's a woman thing, but metaphorical 'jumping' seems to be a thread that runs through our poetry. The "Black Dog" of depression.... Maybe hormones, maybe just our emotional nature? I have an amazing book called "The Van Gogh Blues" which is about how creative people have more depression and related issues due to our creative spirits. Hell, I don't know....But thanks for stopping by. I love you, too, my poet-friend. Blessings to you all!!!