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Three Poems

By David Raffeld

Markers

At the cemetery
I see my landlord's last name
on one of the gravestones and remember
my rent is due.

Aphorism for the Literal
(At Natural Bridge, North Adams, Massachusetts)

Here is an original carving
where a revision in stone
is literally a waste of time.

Prayer

I close the door behind me
my two children asleep
unwinding their dream
of this day and the day before
and what will be ahead.

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That they will wake tomorrow
is the miracle of all my waking days.

But when I'm in their room
looking down upon them in the dark,
the moonlight combing the faces
of their uninterrupted sleep
I can think of nothing else that would be them, that could hold a burning candle to their innocence;
not alphabet, song or sorrow, not even Eden
with all its summer bronze and indolence.

I pray my children will pocket hope
as they pick their way through uncertainty.
Pray they will not settle for the secondhand,
that the wind will bend at their knees,
that rust will not tarnish their souls.
Let their eyes raise hope to their brows
that will deepen and furrow with the light
from ladders that lead to the stars,
their steps waking the earth
as they take their strides.

I pray my children will dance
in the light of all the dangers
they will trace when all their doors
come waving open one by one
and each one of them is a sun.

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At The Barber Shop

By Abbot Cutler

Chet's, in Greenfield, Mass. This
is no hairdresser's, no stylist's,
no unisex, blow-dry, pamper me
shop, even though a young woman,
blond hair teased out, greets me
in the doorway, the dark and the rain
coming down outside. She says
she's got time, will cut my hair
before she locks up and goes home.
I sit in one of three half-ton swivel
chairs from the fifties and she begins
with electric clippers to take it back
to something reasonable. Everything
about the place is reasonable. The five
metal chairs with stuffed plastic seats,
the tables with Field And Stream
and Reader's Digest. No products
to sell, no decor to make me feel
she cares ... about the shop
or me. And why should she?
The shop's her father's ... and me?
But I want to believe she does careas clumps of my hair fall

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onto the shiny sheet I'm under
and slide down onto my lap. The buzz
of the clippers around my ear
brings back an adolescent fear
that I will look foolish, my ears
stranded on a canvas of shorn scalp.
Why am I here? But she is more
adept than that and maybe cares.
She asks me where I live and
what I do and I ask how it is
that she is there cutting hair,
and does she like it? She does
and no, she wouldn't want to go
someplace else. She went
to Springfield, but didn't like it,
moved back. Now, she's using
thinning sheers, big chops that
only take a bit, My sixteen-year-old self
sits back, breathes more easily,
the fear of looking foolish
only momentary. I can tell
her what I want. She went
to school for this, and I, at fifty
must know how I want to appear,
which side my hair is parted on.
She combs it into place, pats it

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gently and says, "How's that?"
I look and I look fine, reasonable.
I say that and she sweeps off
the sheet and shakes it out.
The register drawer clangs and slams.
I must have paid. She's putting it
all in order. I'd like to have stayed
a while longer, but I'm on the side-
walk in the November dark
feeling the cold on my bare neck,
car keys in my pocket.

At A Family Reunion in Hawley

By Mary Kennan Herbert

a sacrament
here are snippets
guarded conversations
memories wrapped in an uncomfortable foil
slings and arrows ethnic jokes
fraternal barbs in profusion
tenderness well hidden love restrained

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passion denied
what else shall I list
in this beach-stained album
full of our many photographs
your children and mine
line them all up according to size and age
dress them all in souvenir tee-shirts
so I can use up rolls of film
get everybody's mug for eternity don't move
here you will be in a super-size print
I share the negatives with one and all
I will send prints to all on the family
tree but by the time you read this
half of us are divorced and half of us are dead
there are no guarantees
but grandma hugs us again and again
every time we show home movies and here we are
doing this family thing knowing the uselessness
and possible blessings of these chronicles

David Raffeld is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently Into the World of Men, published in 1997 by Adastra, and a verse play, The Isaac Oratorio. His poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Christian Science Monitor, Phoebe, Contempora, and other publications. His work has also appeared in several anthologies, among them: Under One Roof and most recently Jamaica Kincaid's My Favorite Plant. He is the editor and publisher of PotlatcXh, an anthology of poetry, prose and art. He is a frequent adjunct in the departments of religion and philosophy at Williams College. He lives in Williamstown.

Abbot Cutler teaches creative writing and literature at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He is the author of 1843 Rebecca 1847, a book of narrative poetry, and his poems have appeared in several publications, including Ploughshares, PotlatcXh, Blue Sofa Review, and the anthology, Under One Roof. Professor Cutler is the advisor for the annual publication of student writing, Kaleidoscope. He will return in the fall from a sabbatical leave devoted to writing.

Mary Kennan Herbert teaches writing at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, following a career in book publishing. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including College English, The Chattahoochee Review, The Dominion Review, and Hiram Poetry Review. A first collection of poems was published last year by Ginninderra Press in Australia, which will publish a second book

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