Wendell Berry writes of sacred and desecrated places, something I’ve been interested in exploring thematically in my work. That, and the ache of erasure. Holding on and letting go. BLR
Beth Lodge-Rigal is the Creative Director of Women Writing for (a) Change/The Writing for a Change Foundation of Bloomington. For 16 years, she’s been dedicated to building safe and courageous spaces for women, girls, and all individuals to create and connect through the art of writing and deep listening.
She’s an award- winning songwriter, a life-long writer, learner, social entrepreneur, Mother, Partner, and Leader.
Welcome to The Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Beth, what poems have you brought for us today?
Elegy for the Gregerson Barn
Water took the rafters
drop by drop, the wind
pressed from the west
curved the poplar beams
inch by inch.
Swallows dipped and flew
in and out of broken
windows, foxes burrowed along
the breezeway, pounced
on the shadow ghosts
of Percy’s hogs, stirred
up dung dust, mouldering
grains, slanted loft light.
Braced to last, chisel
and broadaxe-built, post
by long summer beam
the day they ripped away her
faded white- dressed wood
she stood strong in skeletal
glory, backlit by a sunset
to rival any Victor Fleming
Technicolor masterpiece.
Defying field and sky, defying
men and their newfangled
machines she stood her proud
ground til under the stress of
crane and crowbar,
she stood no more.
Night falls on the empty
space that once held
her rustlings,
the breathing of boys
in the bays. Night falls
on the song of the old
wagon driver, the lowing
cow, the settling quiet.
Come morning, we’ll
find a rusted hinge on
the scraped earth, walk
what’s left of the perimeter
scar, pour tea in corners
and pray forgiveness for
our abandonments,
sanctify this ground
with remembrance
and awe.
Fences
We aren’t native to this land. It’s time to plant what is. It’s time to go home.
from “Poem for a Daughter” by Lynn Melnick
They weren’t native to this land.
Their footsteps trod unfamiliar ground,
disappeared behind them into
the flat nowhere way back when.
Time came to plant, they planted what was,
built poor man’s fences horse high,
bull strong, hog tight
Osage orange. Strange shrubbery,
it prickled their sleeves splintered hooves
no machete could cut
no match would burn -so
there you have it:
miles and miles of hedge apple
fences left to us - squirrel mash
prairie fruit be-dashed.
Come October I feel a pull to ancestral fields,
thorny edge along
the 20 acre woods, and remember
my grandmother’s 1928 Botony thesis:
Maclura Pomifera.
Those wrinkled balls
brain-like but dumb-
and picture her young again,
seated on a felled log
a ray of sunlight warming
the inedible fruit in her hand
releasing its citrus scent, as she sketches
what she sees until the light fades.
A supper bell rings,
calls her back
over the new split rail
where, tossing a mystery
to the ground,
the autumn fencerow
ornament rolls.
It parts the
yellow grass.
You've beem listening to the poetry of Beth Lodge-Rigal on The Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.
