SEVEN SONNETS BY DON YORTY

Don Yorty is a poet, educator, and garden activist living in New York City. He is the author of two previous poetry collections, A Few Swimmers Appear and Poet Laundromat (both from Philadelphia Eye & Ear), and he is included in Out of This World, An Anthology of the Poetry of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project, 1966– 1991. His novel What Night Forgets was published by Herodias Press in 2000. He blogs at donyorty.com: an archive of current art, his own writing, and work of other poets. A new book, Spring Sonnets, was published by Indolent Books in August.

Don sent me seven and asked me to choose five - but as they are all wonderful I go on with all seven. I am not even changing the numbers he has given them in his sequence as they too matter.

All rights for these poems rest solely with Don Yorty.

42

In an abandoned web the baby twined

with its tail held fast in the twisted strands

which I gently tugged at with careful hands

not wanting to break the delicate spine

of one so young. When I went in the house

my father said, “Your cat is killing snakes

in the cellar.” I went straight down to shake

that cat and say, “A snake is not a mouse.”

It doesn’t help though. One was real little

like the one I’d just saved and crawled away

but the other one’s beautiful length lay

severed in three. I was glad it was still

but oh the upper part opened its jaws

and coiled into a howl that wouldn’t close.

58

Is it necessary to rhyme, to be

nailed down to a certain philosophy?

Inside the walls of our skulls are we free?

What if we didn’t have the eyes to see

or ears to hear a word? Would we feel thought

like sun on a cold day? The squirrel shows thought

scurrying up the bark where a smart moth

has thought to camouflage itself. I fought

with myself walking in the woods afraid

my thoughts were not that good and saw clouds float

in the sky above and the spring below

where bubble rose and broke into the air

as if some giant in the earth belched out its

breath after puffing up and saving it.

96

Where there’s a will there is a way. After

her stroke my friend Bernadette could no

longer write by hand, but lo and behold

she could type. Her words continued after

all, books full, and since then she has written

one of my favorite poems. Into the world

the unborn baby pushes and uncurls.

Bernadette learned to walk and read even

the subtitles in La Muerte de un

Burocrato and La Ilusion

Viaja en Transvia. Real visions

come to poets who know we suffer and

die, yet pain can begin more than it ends

healing hurting bones and making thoughts mend.

98

Mother is cooking marinara sauce

for three of her grandchildren who’ll soon go

back to college. It’s a darned slow process.

At Uncle Al’s I picked each tomato

as ripe and as red as it gets. Poaching

peeling slicing Mom finally dumps them

in the pot gasping heavily struggling

to breathe, maintain her heavy self and

ease the necessary doing, chopping

onions and peppers. The garlic and dried

basil I shopped for are thrown in bringing

all of the spices bubbling side by side.

To condense taste to its essence simmer.

Mother proves Love can satisfy hunger.

99

Reading Vygotsky I want to write down

a word I’ve not heard of—involution

Hmmm? Is it opposite evolution?—

and look it up later. Notebook open

I planned to jot it here but instead wrote

a sonnet about Mother and forgot

the word in marinara sauce. Sonnet

finished, returned to Vygotsky, the word

is still right there where it remains unknown.

I won’t write it now as the solution

but will remind myself with a poem

adding words I don’t know or want to know

better: concupiscence, algorithm

exegesis, satrap and amalgam.

107

I created the world with the first word

I spoke connecting myself with the real.

Then I could even close my eyes and feel

what I’d set in motion with the first word

I had spoken. Perhaps it was water

or maybe a snake or the sun coming

through the branches. Right now I’m creating

because I was told to by Bill Kushner

whose hands look like sandstone with sudden flecks 

of pink in them, asterisk fingertips

or constellations of stars. From his lips

he commands, “Write,” and my hand starts to, quick

blurred. It’s difficult to see what’s living.

Is it from the dead we get our bearings?

112

This day fits my unquiet spirit. It

is cold but not cold—No, actually

it is. Still the pond melts. You cannot see

the fish. Can’t skate or swim in it. And it

is raining ice. Can’t take a walk. I’m sad.

Help Dad stack logs he cut last year and split

dried out and ready to be lit. I’ll sit

by the fire and read Hawthorne instead, glad

at the thought of it. Glad too the crows move

on the snow, peck through all the garbage Dad

left them this morning. ¡Feliz Navidad!

Joyeux Noël. Cake! Shrimp shells! Caw! Caw! Who

knows the words to articulate the we

and excite the good will in us and peace?

Next up is Santosh Bakaya, then to be followed by Daipayan Nair, Jagari Mukherjee, Aakriti Kuntal and others.