for Adrienne Rich
I thought (of you) all the time
how we carry the day, drag all of it
with us in wet nets
along the studded rocky shore
Some look up some don’t as they dig
from the East
fire blackened, always at the edge of your eye
and bell of night.
from Orion : and the One bright above in the Northeast
the chunky brilliance
flowing garment of the Milky Way
partial palm print on my window
How you believed in the sky at the end, held the cracked
cracked brilliance in your bones galaxies seeing from another fearless eye head unturning
Yesterday honoring you, night seeker who loved
trailing stars and hard ground
the journey between: dream kept breaking, right up to the high water mark
handsome sky ablaze down to the treetops forehead with stark writing across
crabbed bones becoming all bone and ready to heave it all
off the edge into the fire belt of stars
Beatrix Gates’ collections include In the Open and Ten Minutes. She shared a Witter Bynner Translation Award with Electa Arenal for The Poems of Vikram Babu by Jesús Aguado (HOST). As librettist, Gates received support with composer Anna Dembska from the NEA for “The Singing Bridge” which premiered in 2005.