The Undiscovered Country

Warm splashes filled the house as it woke to
the clear morning. The bright
beams hung in the curtains, curled in the chairs,
decked the floor

with glowing patterns traced in spreading light,
and helped to ease the cares
of the young girl who's work began before
the rising.

Mary had only nine years. She was fair,
with brown locks which she wore
already in a bun like her sleeping
grandmother.

The old woman, who slept by the stove, bore
years she had stopped counting
long seasons before the coming of her
child's child; who

in these, her final days, eased her dying
with a young one's wonder.
Lilian was wrapped in patches of blue
set in white

which she had sewn herself under younger
suns and now, drowsing, drew
about her rocker in folds winding tight,
like her hair.

The smells of the morning haunted the dreams
that billowed in the mind
of the woman who's hands shaped the faces
of this home

just as, before her time, her kin and kind
had formed its bones, braces,
and sinews, planting them in deep set loam
so that it

was, from its foundation to the laces
in the windows, a tome
lettered by hands that over time were knit
together

with consent and the ruddy drops that roam
in the heart. The air, lit
by the rounded breath of the late summer
early gleams,

was laden with the motions and fidget
of an unseen muster
that carried, like the swan's song, in its themes
and tunes, blind

time's unqueried counsel. The house's purr
resounded in the beams
with nesh motions which helped old joints to find
lost places.

The fire had been woken from its nightly
somnolence in the gray
shuddering of the gathering light by
Mary's small

hands. A round of bread dough sat on a tray.
Mary rolled out a pie
crust, with quiet vigor, producing in the sprawl
those signs of

a disarray whose bounty served to tie
the child into it all.
A white pie bird, set on a shelf above
the platter,

was, with its neck out-stretched in silent call
that brought Mary to love
its porcelain form and thus, also, her
work, wholly

transmuted into an oneric dove,
bearing a black banner,
by the sleeper who had previously
led the way

in the kitchen. Waking from her slumber,
Lilian spoke kindly,
"Dear, you must put in the bread for today,"
with a sigh.

The dawn of Lilian's waking was thick
with the soft demand
and claim, calling from out of an unchecked,
calm lucence,

out from the youth of those splashing green lands
of memory, from arced
vestibules that held for her the essence
of those who,

of her blood and her heart's content, were marked
to die, carving her sense
of time past bone thin, like a needle to
stitch for her

a border to her days with the absence
of the eternal. Through
hushed bones, she could feel her voice sputter,
wheel and tick,

"Child you must change all the flowers to do
what we can to honor
this day; and, as though it were Sunday, pick
a long strand

of trumpet vine to weave with ling over
the door. The fine cambric
cloth should be spread on the board with woodland
flowers, flecked

with the tall grasses that grow by the creek."
Mary paused, watching this
old woman whose eyes dropped closed keeping time
while she spoke.

"I see you plan to bake a pie there, Miss,
and it would be a crime
if we didn't serve a bird for the folk
before that."

"Yes Mam, I's gonna use the dove to clime
the crust on where it pokes
through, and it's berry, Mam, jest like old Nat
used to eat

before I was old." "You had best to stoke
the fire, and get a vat
of oil for the chicken. Gather some sweet
corn and peek

in at the pups in the tool shed there at
the first bend of the street."
While Mary brought in the wood, the low squeak
and soft hiss

of the rocker tipping and the fire's heat
breathing, severed the weak
tethers that kept Lilian from the bliss
of sleep's rhyme.

Even in the orotund syllables
of dream that spread
through Lilian's joints, she could sense the cold
hand's clutches.

She knew now that comfort of vast and dread
finality as old
before the first murmur on the beaches
of the deep

and ancient sea. Her passing visions rolled
with turbulent crashes
upon the rocks of her life's final sleep,
lulling her.

When Mary returned, Lilian's lashes
released her eyes to leap
across the girl's face whose shy movements were
unable

to hide her many questions which would creep
out of her eyes, under
blinking lids, with each glimpse. "The long table's
all been spread,

Mam; but old Nat sure is gonna wonder,
seeing the eatables
we's making and the cambric laid, who's dead
or what's sold."

The old woman's mouth curled at the young girl's
precociousness but she
muttered under her breath, "When the boys come
in it will

be dark and the tired land, and every tree,
will sleep just like some
drunk soused on the rays of the sun. The chill,
like a sound,

will enfold me and with grace it will numb
all my limbs and my shrill
thoughts when I end the last curve of this round
adventure."

Nat and Mary's brother would work until
after the sun was drowned
as they had since first Louis could endure
in a churl's

toil. Mary got out some cured pork and found,
underneath the counter,
a large pot which she filled and decked with pearls
of silky

oil. She put in garlic, sage and the pure
fat cut from the red swirls,
and placed this cold broth on the stove top, free
to become.

Her duties compelled, and her demeanor
inclined the child to take,
in measure, the soft commands, the discreet
musings which

climbed, by days, endeavoring to forsake
the uses which were meet
to the habits of land, and strove to stitch,
with portent,

a folding that Lilian hoped would pleat
the young girl's thoughts with rich
remembrance. The old woman's words were meant
to convey

the real strictures of this passage, the hitch
of all these pertinent
and pleasing ends. Working towards midday
with demure

content, in her childish and reluctant
grace, weaving work with play,
Mary cooked a stew for the men of her
bloodline's make.

The child picked those berries that could display
a taste and a texture
that would bloom within the crust and awake
a mild sweet.

Only those berries that filled a rounded
gleam escaped the child's lips
and won a place of honor in the wide,
flat basket

dyed with a thousand pickings. When round strips
of fruit circled the side
of the wicker in even steps, and jet
red danced on

her cheeks and hands, Mary went back inside.
She peeled the corn and set
her berries by the stove. The sun now shone
full. Within

her broth, corn, potatoes, and pork were let
stew while her work had gone
back to the fruits and the flour to thicken
them. Breaded

and sugared, Mary's crop was stirred upon
the stove. When the bitten
juices set, Mary filled the pie and wed
it with grips

of crust that wound about the bird therein.
While the stew cooked she spread
out the things on the board, poured the few nips,
that would tide

Nat till the evening, into his flask, and
helped Lilian with her
sewing. As the muted cry of the clocks
sounded noon,

Mary left some lunch for her grandmother
and set out, with two blocks
of cheese, bread, a pail of stew and a spoon,
for the field.

She brought the hen, a blade, and butcher smocks
since her blood would still swoon
when she set out to kill a bird whose yield
she took in.

Mary returned to clean the hen as soon
as the meal was spent... Sealed
in the folds of the flesh that had been, broken
by that hand

that answers nor question nor plea, the steeled
eyes stared, and in token
were shut by the child whose griefs were as sand
and breaker

as she went again, every heart woken,
to the end of their land,
to tell Nat he had to make another
wooden box.

- Nathan Sidoli, Many places, 1995 - 1998