THREE POEMS by VIRGINIA HOOPER Postmodern Culture v.4 n.2 (January, 1994) pmc@unity.ncsu.edu Copyright (c) 1994 by Virginia Hooper, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that the editors are notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the author and the notification of the publisher, Oxford University Press. ------------------------------------------------------------ HAUNTINGS The hauntings laced themselves into another year, Grew into miracles and fertilized the grass. Spinning absent-mindedly, A thump and a rattle intercepting my dream, I clutched in fury to my story, And, uncertain on which side of the glass I had landed, I turned the page to the first window and climbed through. A cord by which a weight is suspended To test the perpendicularity or depth of a thought. Anything resembling a plume or feather. To adorn, dress, Or furnish with plumes. The thread had vanished Through the maze lined with brilliant blue, an opulence Amazing as the strutting peacock crossing my path. The hauntings came more frequently, Settled across the lawn, warmed the eaves. Is this the lesson We were destined to create, tracing sweet edges onto everything, Legibly exchanging all the fettered excuses With a lovelier version dangling off into the clear deep pool? A division or boundary marked or conceived Between adjoining areas. The cord plumbed my ignorance. The plot stretched endlessly, they reported, endlessly Repeating what came to me one evening Persuading the windows to cloud, the stars to brighten, the moon to retreat demurely behind A dark sense of urgency. As though the mist itself were a mirth Yet grounded into body. Demanded in haste, Given under duress, a rattled mention remained for dinner Clearing the table until the chairs were neatly arranged For company. We invited only those missing All sense of propriety. All cleverness concealed. All desserts aflame With sweetened promises wrapped in tinsel foil Tucked under the waiting pillow. The room was elsewhere. The explanation unravelled beyond my understanding, Hedged the border with a wait and see attitude. Every applicant was scrutinized as a potential messenger. But me, that was the problem. Me. Trespasser Pressed into service by an aimless habit, a nagging Obsession drawing me back to the entrance. Relentlessly crippling My desire to move on. Relentlessly sending me on An errand that folded me back upon myself. Was this the curse of my preoccupation? Or merely my blessing. To mingle and combine So as to obscure or harmonize the varying components, The concerns, they called them, compulsions pushing through The soil until a garden emerged, organized And flowered new responsibilities -- life, they said -- Kept me awake all night. The river remained the same. But more and more, so did I. Looking the part, Aimless but energized by a new vision Acquired in darkness, stuffed into my pockets and taken home. A fortified watchtower, squinting against the light, Caught in the middle of the sacred chamber Whose floors were laid with marble, Whose walls held special insight into a vision Pared for comfort, shaved and scaled to match the era, Chimed the hours. Measured in the stone Of an old extravagance, a mystery reverberating the present Until lights sing, darkness speaks the spell Lingering in the confusion, as though the hauntings Were Enlightenment itself. The distance to be travelled At any cost, its systems and roads mapping vast Expanses of mind over matter -- a mere restoration Supporting the vaulted roof. These copies And originals identical. Looking for some way in, Circling the distance to be travelled, I thumbed through these illustrations of the profound. The cord weighed heavily upon me, sunk deeper Than my memory allowed. Than my mother allowed. The cord pulled me back to the old intersection, Laid me bare to be dressed in the plumes of her intrigue. But was I the trespasser? Lured back again With the knowledge gleaned from experience, the old promise Made by us both. To encircle by winding or weaving, Endlessly revolving back to the place of origin. The logic and elegance of the interior carried me Through its argument, an alphabet building Its own structure to house an idea hidden In these secret vaults. I wandered aimlessly. Here was design trimmed to fit The particular niches of the puzzle, a maze of concentration Broken only by generations turning the soil. The thought stood perpendicular as a stave Beside me, a mechanism assigning me greater responsibility, A trick played well, posted as sentry. They say crusaders were killed endlessly flitting and filing away The various pieces of the puzzle, sited upon An inhospitable terrain, just inside the encircling logic Nature obeys. The temple had been filled with sand, A castle subject to erosion. These were visions We had to learn, to leave, to stand outside the threshold And peer through. A story half as old as time Traced back to a source, then broken off. As much for the onlooker as the maker. A buried circular staircase, circling toward the obscure But recorded section of a vision sketched into stone. The fortune lay scrolled inward toward the reader, Its clear message left as a last minute impulse To render clear the clouded window Parted for that breath of air, the first glimpse. ------------------------------------------------------------ TEMPLES AND FOLLIES Small temples and follies in the woods, The feeling soon passes Into extinction, or was it merely the fact We reconsidered the labor of love -- the rapture Of reaching journey's end when respite Can't be sought through an intricate network Of hedged corridors, or on summer nights it took us through, Sudden views of the vanished lake. Houses should be lived in again and the landscape Returned, which we discovered Had been designed to rival Hope's End serene romance. The residents are always free to roam. The feeling soon passes, But respite can be sought as a labor of love As all rooms share a graded vista Restoring journey's end when the guests arrive, The original owners of the house. ------------------------------------------------------------ A READING You are impatient, says the oracle. The weather has arrived cloudy, another's day's conclusion Shot with unraveling paths set back From the shore. An ocean's breeze reshuffles the cards Across the deck, disorder restored to pattern, A chance you pattern yourself toward. Prompted to rethink your question, Which might, with grace, lift you above the determined Arrangement currents have washed you against, You play another hand. A chance you pattern yourself Against lifts back through selves You have assumed, fools sprung from oracle Beginnings, framed inside the gold-leaf border Of the cards played in patience When it wasn't in the cards to share the evening With another. And what of crossed destiny? Teased out of solitaire, prompted by impatience, You think you have been courted by the cards. Strange, how this pattern unravels Inside the tale arranged for the oracle's pleasure, A link, after all, you think.