{"id":3229,"date":"2022-02-03T10:48:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T18:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3229"},"modified":"2024-12-11T11:51:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T19:51:57","slug":"three-poems-by-al-young","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/three-poems-by-al-young\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems by Al Young"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"issue14\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 14<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Three Poems by Al Young<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Transformations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

for Ann Hinkel\nAt Ann’s place, even before you arrive
\neverything’s OK, everything’s peaceful.
\nThe apartment air is impregnated with peace
\nparticles. Picture her smiling as she looks
\ninto the mirror to your soul: the eyes,
\nbeam to beam, as she explains why thoughts
\nare  things and  how they work. Or picture
\nher giddiness when she walks into the living\u00ad
\nroom, carrying a tray of tea and cookies,
\nsaying, “This is called yerba mate; it’s pretty
\ngood.” Then, lighting candles and putting on
\nPaul Horn’s solo flute musings, she laughs.
\nInside the Pyramid is where our meditation
\nbegins this time around. Later she laughs again
\nand explains why she’s limping, says,
\n“I took a fall, a double somersault night
\nbefore last on my way up to Glenn’s house.
\nYou know that wobbly wood railing that leads
\nup to his front door-well, I slipped
\non the steps and-whew!-Glenn told me
\nI missed my calling, said I shoulda been
\nan acrobat!” So she’s hobbling tonight.
\nLast month it was her knee that got knocked
\nout of joint. This is the woman who teaches
\nthe Star Exercise and other yogic stances;
\nwho’s teaching us about the limitless powers
\nof mind and soul and who we really are
\ndeep within this pyramid of body, mind and soul.
\nShe leans back in her chair, pats her short
\ncoiffed hair and listens to everything
\neach of us says, even when we all talk at once.
\nOften she feels our thoughts as they circle
\nthe steam-heated room, before they pass
\nthrough the prisms of her lighted windows
\nto whirl around the world and hover there
\neither as sunshine or clouds in the endless
\nsky. O the roof of true, infinite love
\nis so <\/em>vast it can only be housing eternity!\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \nOnce we walked from her place on Powell Street
\nto a Taoist vegetarian restaurant in Chinatown.
\nI held Ann’s hand as we managed a worldly hill.
\nShe huffed, puffing great frosty rings
\nof breath in the chilled San Francisco twilight,
\nbut all the way her fingers pulsed with warmth.
\nFor the very first time it occurred to me
\nhow this beautiful woman was approaching
\nher 75th year on earth with wit and with humor
\nand knowledge; still years younger than us.
\n“I sometimes enjoy a good hamburger,” she
\nsaid when I asked if she were strictly vegetarian.
\nAnd the light, it pours from her heart of hearts
\nand spills upon children like us who keep seeking
\nher out. It’s the same light that plays
\naround her peaceful visage when she speaks
\nor sighs or sits to breathe in silence, or breathe
\nthe glowing sound of warm bamboo in easy repose.
\nShe’s the very mother we’ve all always wanted.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Slots<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

 \nThe sane you watches
\nthe insane you finally
\nrecover the money you
\nprayed to get back
\nto get even & get out
\nat last. The you who
\nknows everything registers
\nthis & stands or hovers
\nhelplessly by the you buying
\ninto your own dark dumbness.
\nThis is Pinocchio’s town;
\nas Italian as a scallion
\nchopped & minced into moments
\n& minutes of slow-falling
\nconfetti. “Viola!” shrieks
\nthe French lady across the aisle
\nas her sheik of a boyfriend pulls
\n$250 in coins with a smile.
\nThen it happens to you:
\none last bleary pull of the handle
\n& you’re richer than you started
\nout, you’ve come back. Silver
\ncomes chattering down like
\nmetal tumbleweed; your needs
\nhave indeed been filled full
\nto the brim. You turn to him,
\nthe sane you, that is, & you say:
\n“You blockhead, you fool on wheels,
\nyou’ve done it again!” & the  sane
\nyou says, “Scoop up what you got,
\ngo take a shower, relax & catch
\nthe next plane home!” But
\nthe stupid you, triumphant,
\nsmug in its captivity, can’t wait
\nto start feeding it back.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever Becomes of the Living?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

for Kenneth Rexroth in memoriam By the sea it was, the Pacific,
your eyes glazed with dream
& the sonorous Indiana of your voice\u00ad-
part ponderous, part invention-you
blinked & looked hard at me
the first & second times we met
at Asilomar then at Santa Cruz,
each setting the perfect location
for a moving star like you, like
the Santa Barbara that saw you
slip away into the blue of another home. What happens? Whatever becomes
of the living? Your voice still graces
unaccountable passages of my rites
en route to poethood. I have as much
right to look on you as teacher
as anyone raising themselves
in the razor winds of my catch-all,
stormy era. But there is no sound
sharp enough to cut through the water
& the thunder of you flashing
in your own shrewd role as soul publicist,
as worldly Hoosier booster of the spirit-feel.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3229"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37572,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions\/37572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}