Poetry: Selections from Mary Ann Dimand

A BIRD COMMISSION

 

So much depends upon the guardianship

of cattle egrets, their hunched-wing

walk between the gravestones. They are not holding

down the soil, the sinking caskets, the bones

that melt to meal, then mold—those turn

themselves, are turned by worms

and fungus, by the hungry underground

into a womb for insects, moles, and message

seeped between the trees. 

                                         No, those egrets

charged with light unfold it as their wings

are spread, they rising, crosses sad

to lift from loam. Down it flows their feathers,

iced though warm, shining with a promise: 

You will know. I light your way. 

                                                    Still,

I worry. Surely their slow pursuit

of mowers is for insects roused 

from toppled grass. The crickets, ticks,

and small moths of a sleepy field. They are quiet,

will not say. The earth is turning underfoot.

Cattle egrets shape flies into eggs

the blue of timid skies. And yet,

the cemetery would be less without them,

retiring souls bereft of feathered faith.

THE GRAMMAR OF WALL

 

The stones are not enough, gift

of earth and fire or mud that formed

each mass and loaded it with gravity—nor

the skilled selection, nor the trim

by blade or shock, wind, or waves. There

they lie, a handsome heap, but not a wall.

 

No, the grammar of wall is courses fitted

so ingeniously they stand in tension,

or less laboriously, linked by a paste

of time and art, then laid in such selection

that wall braces wall; stone, stone. The order,

shape, and close connection bring

 

these elements to meaning, so they hold a space.

They’re plainly not alike. Each wall

does something different. “Don’t pass”

is not “Be safe inside,” nor “I hold hillside,”

nor yet “Lean on me, sun-warmed, 

grow and fruit.” But each magnificent heft

of rock makes little meaning without a builder’s logic.

 

 

 

OLD PRESIDENT ANTAEUS

 

We should have guessed, I judge, knowing how deep 

in pink clay dirt his toes were as he grew, how

the salt and risky air of ports might cure him. Power

from land and sea, upon and under. Strength

to build back soil by choosing crops. Heart

and mind to follow quail, to hear the dove, and hunt

for food and for those birds. Nerve and constancy 

to train for war, yet work for patient peace

through years of farming trust, of offering

backing, of means and ways and promised rescue

that came through. Mostly. With mistakes.

 

Raised in Georgia heat and laved in critics’ fires, 

his sweetness never burned, but only mellowed.

His grounding never faltered, fed by sky’s

own nitrogen imbued in earth, informed 

as if the squirrels chattered to him, mycelia 

whispered through his flesh, and he was always listening.

 

Perhaps because this world so loves him, 

he’s slow to die, as ancient redwoods are. Marvel

paired with marvel, a worn, bent elder holding up

the partner who’s upheld him on their long, slow path.

ON A LAST MEAL

“Why does a state that puts convicts to death precede that with a last meal of their choice?” 

— @yankeeblues

 

Hail, Cerberus. We greet

you from this shore

of death, and beg your opening

of the gates of Hell for one

we shove to you. We send

him laden with an offering

cargo, a meal sumptuous

as he could dream of, warm

inside his belly still. Take 

him, we pray, and this his passage.

Assign no added mort of death

to us who, trembling, offed him.

SIGILS

 

The shattered deer 

on the road’s shoulder, 

the one-time

lamina of splattered

insects—flies and locusts,

mosquitos, moths,

and butterflies, skippers, 

and occasional sharp

dragonflies—even the husk-

dry bees blown in 

by arid Kansas 

aren’t just ends. They speak

of life, without which are no

ends, and of tomorrows

built not only

on the generations

they have birthed,

but how their bodies make

rich meals, habitations,

soils, temples of the energy

that wraps and moves

us all until—unless— 

we throttle it.

Mary Ann Dimand was born in Southern Illinois where Union North met Confederate South, and her work is shaped by kinships and conflicts: economics and theology, farming and feminism and history. Dimand holds an MA in economics from Carleton University, an MPhil from Yale University, and an MDiv from Iliff School of Theology. Some of her previous publication credits include: The History of Game Theory Volume I: From the Beginnings to 1945; The Foundations of Game Theory; and Women of Value: Feminist Essays on the History of Women in Economics, among others. Her work is published or forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Agave Magazine, Apricity Magazine, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Bitterzoet Magazine, The Borfski Press, The Broken Plate, Chapter House Journal, The Charles Carter, Cider Press Review, The Ear, El Portal, Euphony Journal, Faultline, FRiGG Magazine, From Sac, Front Porch Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Hollins Critic, The Hungry Chimera, Isacoustic, I-70 Review, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Literally Stories, The MacGuffin, Mantis, Medicine and Meaning, Misfit Magazine, Mount Hope Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, Oddville Press, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, Pennsylvania English, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Penumbra, Plainsongs, Platform Review, RAW Journal of the Arts, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, Slab, Sortes, Steam Ticket, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Sweet Tree Review, Thieving Magpie, THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays, Tulane Review, Version 9, Visitant Lit, Whimperbang, Word For/Word, and Wrath-Bearing Tree.