POETS OF THE DAY: DEBRA KAUFMAN AND SUSAN M. LEFLER

The poems by Debra Kaufman and Susan M. Lefler weave together in all sorts of interesting ways, beyond the obvious. Both deal with family and grief, yes, but beyond that, their voices entwine stylistically and tonally. I'm pleased to feature their new books today and encourage you to order them, keep them side by side, and turn to them especially as night falls. Their poetry waits to offer up its riches in the silence of nightfall. Or the early morning hour when one stands with a cup of coffee looking out at the world, remembering Czeslaw Milosz's prayer from "On Angels":

day draws near

another one
do what you can.

Debra Kaufman has given much to the literary community in her part of North Carolina. A playwright as well as poet, editor, teacher, and enabler of other writers, she embodies what is most admirable in our North Carolina literary scene.

Debra's new book can be found at Jacar Press's website--www.jacarpress.com. Jacar promises to become one of the South's most important small presses.

• • We're Never Ready

    Here we gather,
    motley, at the wake.
    
    This one hasn’t had her roots
    touched up. That one’s stuffed
    
    into his best suit coat.
    One has black grease under his fingernails.
    
    Another teeters on too-high heels
    saying Jesus, Jesus—
    
    half-prayer, half-curse.
    We gather brassy,
    
    shabby, befuddled,
    to witness this body—
    
    yellow rose on blue lapel,
    fresh haircut, no necktie—
    
    his body without his laugh,
    his breath, the pain.
    
    

    Autumnal Equinox

    Sugar maples blaze at sunset;
    leaves swoop and skirt
    the chilling wind like chimney swifts.
    
    A boy leaps into leaves,
    calls to a neighbor’s Irish red,
    as light falls, a cat’s white shadow,
    
    on his grandmother’s lap.
    Her hands rest there,
    her grandmother’s hands,
    
    the same boniness of wrist and knuckle,
    dry fingers nearly flammable in the smoky air.
    She smells ripe pears
    
    and feels her body drawn
    toward the darkness that rolls in
    earlier each day.
    
    Heat and light retreat,
    and evening covers everything
    except the boy, whose hair shines
    
    silky silver light
    as he tosses armfuls of color
    upward, like sparks.
    
    

  

  Susan Lefler has been in several of my workshops, which means I'm by no means objective when it comes to her work. I've watched her grow over the years into a writer who knows her material and can work with it without flinching, asking the tough questions, lowering the windlass at the well, as Seamus Heaney has described the poet's growth. Her first collection, Rendering the Bones, comes fully rendered itself, a mature poet's voice reaching out to us.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  
  Charlie Hughes has made Wind Publications a treasure trove of some of the best poetry being published in the South. Visit his site--www.windpub.com--to view his catalog. Charlie is a fine poet himself and a longtime supporter of Appalachian and Southern writing.

  
  

  
  

  
  Rendering the Bones

  
  The trouble with grief,
  I think as I boil the bones,
  is that you grow accustomed to it.
  Empty space, where all you have left
  is old dry bones.
  
  At the rest home where my father lives,
  his neighbors pedal their wheeled chairs like
  little boats along the halls, their eyes empty
  as hooked fish. These old ones know
  dry bones don’t live.
  
  Against her shriveled breast,
  an old woman clutches her plastic doll,
  touches its cheek and croons to it.
  Her reedy cry follows me down
  the narrow hallways of our loss
  
  where I hear her again,
  as I stand at my stove,
  clutching my mother’s spoon
  in my hands,
  rendering the bones.

  
  
  

  Analysis of a Perfect Storm

  
  

  
  

  The eye where the wind lies quiet

  must be round and smooth as silk pajamas

  
  

  and very, very still, and those who stand

  in its center must rest in its infinite

  
  

  curve as if held in the arms

  of a mother while outside, the wind

  
  

  gathers. There must be a pupil

  in that calm eye to watch in all directions

  
  

  as winds build toward their dead intent

  and the pressure drops. No holy habitation

  
  

  here, no safety net, no freedom for the guest.

  Trapped in a hospital cube, I listen

  
  

  with my parents to steel voices

  while one hope after another collapses,

  
  

  sucking our breath. Outside, the wind

  picks up again and my father stares transfixed,

  
  

  rehearsing escape routes

  even as water rises and the eye

  
  

  passes over.