Nudelman - The seeker ascends: poems

THE SEEKER ASCENDS THE SEEKER ASCENDS poems by Merle Nudelman INANNA Publications and Education Inc. Toronto, Canada Copyright 2018 Merle Nudelman Except for the use of short passages for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced, in part or in whole, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, or any information or storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. The publisher is also grateful for the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. Cover artwork: Mary Lou Payzant, Fear of Falling #4, 2014, Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 14 inches. Photo: John Oughton.

Cover design: Val Fullard eBook: tikaebooks.com Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Nudelman, Merle, author The seeker ascends / Merle Nudelman. (Inanna poetry & fiction series) Poems. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-77133-521-8 (softcover). ISBN 978-1-77133-522-5 (epub). ISBN 978-1-77133-523-2 (Kindle).

ISBN 978-1-77133-524-9 (pdf) I. Title. II. Series: Inanna poetry and fiction series PS8577.U34S44 2018 C811.6 C2018-901539-X C2018-901540-3 Printed and bound in Canada Inanna Publications and Education Inc. 210 Founders College, York University 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada Telephone: (416) 7365356 Fax (416) 7365765 Email: For Michael,
in eternal loving memory Contents That time was like never, and like always. So we go there, where nothing is waiting; we find everything waiting there.

Pablo Neruda This Roofless House The Verge Skipping to school she ponders the puzzle triangular fruit falling at her feet, petals onto lids, lips, and into her ears fragrant whispers about essence: the integers power, fulcrums scale. Chanting its name thrice then thrice and thrice, shes diamond-blue, webbed in air thick with 3s. Saffron molecules whirl dervish-like, implant membranes. Bloods mirror radiates mesmerized atoms out into the ether triple-braided strands encircling. Her lifes cipher doubled to infinity. Beyond contradiction, lies, and illusion loops the authentic.

For now, a bewildered heaven. In the third month she was born, he in the ninth; they met on the ninth of the twelfth. Wed in the sixth, she bore two sons: she-note for the male trio. Mystics foretell three brings wisdom as we climb the sides of lifes triangle to the tip, to oneness. The cosmic numeral challenges: create with what you hold and rejoice in the cryptic. So it is told.

So it is believed. Behold its form: the female figure bearing life, a labyrinth, eyes intuiting connection. Thrice, ten years wash over the land. Sun moves, sky rains, stars burn in the firmament. The moon reflects upon strings of prayer beads in sets of thirty-three Amens numeric peer. Devotion to the power of three three three.

Still, at thirty-three her son dies. Loss i. When the one she prizes more than breath, more than her sacred self, when this prismatic being plunges perilously ill, crumbles on cancerous boulders below, the world greys and she a stranger in it an entity that appears woman but is merely afterimage. Quaking in the void where he once stood her bones weep for all he was and was to be her heart (a monstrous, distorted thing) bursts to break, to end the shuddering into another day. ii. There is mercy.

In dreamy visions he comes. Robust and wise he comforts his mother, offers her courage and she clings to the golden haze. iii. Stage IV, they say, and the woman vows to save him. She scours the aisles, dismisses plums, guava, dragonfruit, cups a mangosteen pulsing in her palm. This potent fruit she brings to him with rich berries, purple grapes.

Awake, asleep she seeks solutions, combinations minerals, meridians, prayer an elixir to right the riddle of mutated cells. Down her throat slithers the python. More metal than flesh, more do than feel the woman is fearless, indestructible. Son, heal her son. This is the thing and everything. iv. iv.

Armed with Olympic dedication he accepts all challenges braves the gamut torturous treatments, tried and trial. Ever the athlete, he calibrates, charges into the fray v. Believing in the healing peaks they are pink balloons on a roller coasters rise dark dominoes tossed and toppled when tumors progress. vi. What now? The oncologist shrugs. There are no comparables.

Such steel. His trajectory flies off the charts. Trust and fear shuffle. vii. He did not trip or tumble. He did not slip then slide.

He did not stand at the edge of that vast cliff recklessly bent. In truth, he wanted to dance, his children firm in his arms. To skate until the ice melted. To celebrate daybreak and its morning. viii. Pasty sky licks the seam sealing the beams dense as lead mashing him into, onto this mucky earth.

Sweat from the bones of that faceless sky clings to thick phone wire, skews the spikes raining upon him flailing in the storm. Out of fogs density a cry Here, only here the seam relents. But the mist mutes, refutes, and he is lost. ix. His bedroom door dangles from its frame leaving space malleable while the lidless box stares at things best left unnamed this roofless house its mad valve speckling arms red mother on her knees rotating the bloated his rusted possibilities doing the math wrong as her mind bleeds through the doorway crouches inside the quivery box screams at Decembers claws unhinging a sons heart. Ode to a Birch In height and breadth you dwarf us column of textured bark branches steadying sky jade leaves chameleons on your helmet gleaming galactic You our sentinel firm at the gate a slender birch canopy full as geishas hair you shade us from sorrow refresh us with the laughter of your reach even in Februarys noxious white unflinching you bear the trickling ice insidious snow burrowing beneath raw bark while the earth dims, furrows and you remain true day after punishing day remain our birch profound in your silence determined to bud again in summer fullness before falls stumbling foliage and twigs gather airs fury But lightning stabs your hollow that takes the cut slowly straightens braces for storms intent to do and they do strike again open fissures blight leaves distort your brilliant crown emptied of scattering squirrels the romp and swish Bird-gossip abounds surrounds you shift shifting within the grey in black December till the night of days when your herculean will is ambushed and tested no more.

The Endless Once In then out again through prayers spaces, see how the lamp spins the maze the pupil, the eye, heads touching, palms on small crowns. Blessings for them, tremulous scrolls, for hallowed lights remembered. Parents sing the words in their hands g rant me understanding so that I may live. They watch mother filming, squeeze close to father sitting on the bed. Fans wand him as he holds a prayer book: h is children for a blessing. Moonlit comet he traces time, petalled arms shouldering.

He sent signs and wonders into your midst near the locked box, morphine inside, near the oxygen where days lay fine on nights surfaces. The lamp warms and they slip inside this moment paled rose on the infinite table a nd their waves are stilled . After that, the Garden Weeks you stoop in a cape that hangs in rigid roughness galling eyes. At your sides empty shells, prospects tangled at your feet. Palms pressing we face the wall that parts to our intent, reveals bursts of zinnias beside willows. We pause at the bench.