Three

Poems

by

Glenna Luschei

 

audio

 

Rain Dance

Twenty years of waiting for him
to apologize, to ask me to dance.
I asked him

and we danced at our son’s wedding
to his Mexican beauty. Two hours
with Mariachis, all night with DJs.
Salsa, meringue, samba, cha-cha-cha.
Even to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,
while the machine threw out smoke.

And on the bronzed California hills,
it began to rain as in the green
corn dance at Zia Pueblo. It rained down
mudhens, kashares, crickets, lightning
bugs and lightning. The Wall
broke into wet crumbling adobe.
Our grandchildren slid down the berm
like salamanders.

And I forgave him,
understood why smoke
got in my eyes, why lovely things die,
why I loved him.
The shine on our children’s faces
when they saw us dancing
made me grieve for our estrangement.
Our children, with splits in their heads
like Frankenstein’s monster, would not heal,
become whole, until I merged with the other
half of the nucleus. I grieved
that I withheld this peace from them.

And we danced in the rain until dawn
until the bride was green with dollar bills.

 

pen

 

Bare Root Seasons

I hit rock bottom.
My shovel strikes boulder
in the creek.

Beneath white sycamores
I reason
if I find no soil
if my shoulders hurt
then my heart must wait.

Plant now
or forever miss the fruit.
Roots can worm their way
through earth.

Darling,
it’s the bare root season.

pen

 

I Want To Be Your Poet

I want to be the poet
who invites you up the sweet-
smelling stairs.
My redwood home
would welcome the traveler,
sun on pine needles,
light through clerestories.

I want to be the poet
who sits through the night with you
cricket calling
cough of the kit fox
rasp of the newborn word.

I want to be the poet
who will weep with you
when it’s time to leave,
who remembers
the burgundy of flowering plum.
Flap, flap.
Blue jay in the birdbath.

I want to be the poet
who can kiss you awake.

I’m not afraid of garlic breath.
I’ll deliver CPR.
From your garden I’ll pull out the onion
with a head like Einstein.
Get ready for surprise!

I’ll whisk you through
the silk & barbed wire.
I want to be your poet, to be your lover.

 

 

About Glenna Luschei

Glenna Luschei has published the poetry magazines Café Solo and Solo for forty years. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a D.H Lawrence Fellowship in New Mexico, an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North Carolina and a Master of Life Award from her alma mater, The University of Nebraska.  She was named Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo City and County for the year 2000. For four years, she served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Luschei is the author of many chapbooks, special editions and trade books including, Shot With Eros, John Daniel, 2002, Pianos Around the Cape, Aspermont Press, 1999 and Matriarch, The Smith, 1992.  Three of her artist books have received prizes from the Rounce & Coffin Best Western books from Occidental College. She published an artist book, Enigmas, of her translation of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in 2006.  She has taught many years for UCLA Arts Reach, for Chaplin College at the California Men’s Colony, for Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and at Atascadero State Hospital. Luschei completed her PhD studies in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Santa Barbara in December 2005. She received a fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara to research Medieval Studies and the Troubadours at the University of Portugal, Coimbra.