Sample Poems by Katharine Gregg

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Where They Called Home

What must have struck them first--
the way the horizon folded all
into sky and prairie without dimension
like a folded piece of paper. Lacking
the natives' knowledge of grass
or the lark's gift for sky, they dreamed
of trees--not the poor embroidery
of cottonwoods along the creek bed,
but what they'd left behind:
the sweetness of pines, the red
of maples--all the comfort of mass
that gives texture to land and protects
from the eye of God and the wind.

Building was another problem,
the nearest wood five hundred miles
due east. The local savages dragged
their homes behind them, but
with Grandma's table, Sister's
piano she'd cried to leave behind
they needed rectangles--walls, roof,
a door that closed, so they learned
to use what the land offered: itself dug
out and cut in blocks, oiled
paper over the window holes, a
packing crate door. Overhead
the prairie rolled oblivious,
so they tethered the cow on the roof,
themselves hunkered like rabbits below.

Winter came and rain pushed roots
through the ceiling, whitewash flowed
down the walls, the piano buckled, strings
snapping like melodious gunshots.
The prevailing color, mud,
the smell, mud, the taste, the same.
Sister fell ill with scarlet fever,
lost all her hair. Still it rained:
they had to shift the cow,
but the roof held.

It was the same Sister, hair
sprouting like river bottom grass
and milking the cow once again
on the roof, who spied him, horse
ambling along the horizon,
photographic gear hanging
from the saddle, and like the castaway she was
she flailed her apron till he noticed a blip
in the grass and changed course.

They made a holiday of it,
carried out Grandma's table and every
chair lined up with the horse
(still harnessed to the plow) the dog,
themselves, though the cow remained
on the roof, and opened
a watermelon--the knife's still stuck
in the sweet meat--Pa, one
leg crossed over the other,
his elbow on the table, Ma just
touching its other end, anchoring
the trajectory of their lives, which
the photographer caught: family
between sky and prairie with cow
midway to Heaven.

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Still Life With Motion

Beautiful as flamingos the girls
ride a swing wide enough for the gods.
They perch four on the seat and two
on either end pump from side
to side. Above, the ropes narrow
perspectively into what could be
a peepal tree. The pink silk--one anomalous black--
seem wings against the watery coolness
of the leaves and, beyond, a commonplace
house and car in the heavy Indian sun.

Not Fragonard's coy Mademoiselle
posed on her swing in orchid froth
of petticoats, while one foot
kicks off its ridiculous slipper.
Here all is angled motion
of swing and dusky feet tucked
out of harm and hands like flowers
at the ends of long-stemmed arms.
Notice the tiger in the crouching
girl at the high end--the joyful
thrust of feet to legs, knees
to thighs, how the fabric strains
over the haunches but streams free
behind, in the rush of flight--all
arrested by the shutter's eye
while tree, house, and car blur giddily.

Then, shutter released, the swing
drops in its predicted arc, and leaves,
house and car settle again in the ordinary
Indian day. But look closely. Maybe
you'll see six pink and black flamingos rise
on sari wings through the ropes'
vanishing point, dusty leaves into a lapis sky.

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Bougainvillea Birds


Bougainvillea blooms
along the corrugated
metal wall of the school yard--little
scarlet birds that flutter above the leaf-dry
sparrows pecking the ground. I'm

standing with Husna facing
the bird-flowers, but my eyes
follow Najib--my hand
in my pocket smoothing the fold
of the note he flipped on my desk
while Mr. Ibrahim wrote
3(2x+5) = 45 on the board. He

pretended he'd dropped his pen and ducked
to see I got it. The handsomest boy in school
was asking me to a party--Me
with my girl's braid and flat chest. Husna's
the one they notice. We'll go
to her house, apply kohl, lipstick so Baba
won't see. Najib
waves, and I break off
a bougainvillea bird and stick
it in my braid. As I walk home

the sun warms my arm like Najib's
hand, and the shadows chill like his hand
taken away so I run into an open space--
a school girl in a plaid skirt and blazer,
a scarlet bougainvillea in my hair. and they

begin to shoot--soldiers I didn't
see across the rubbled square.
I fall into a trench, feel a nip
as my scarlet bird takes wing.
More red birds fly up the wall.
I call out, I am Iman al-Homs, 13
of Rafah Junior School. Najib the
handsomest boy in school
invited me . . . Feet

pound the sand. A shadow
blocks the sun. He
empties the clip.

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Pirates Of Penzance

On the radio tonight the old
happy songs.

Casements flung open
on a sea always magically
blue--those high school
musicals where I peeked
from behind my hands
at the frighteningly
long limbs, squar
shoulders and jaws--the
boy stars too blinding for me
to more than sip at, never
stare my fill. Sally Ann, our
goddess maiden gliding
up the dark aisle, smiled
(I thought) at my incredulous
face, not fearing to enter
their aura, eye to eye, voice
to voice--not
fearing how the space
between is treacherous as wet
moss you can slip on. I feel
the fragileness of my edges.
Could I ever walk
up there as though
I belonged among them?

Tonight how simple it all is--
those songs from the radio.

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The Day Stalin Died

It was summer--the French
doors were open onto the terrace
and the mower droned far
then near setting the rhythm
of the day that widened
in circles from the house. I remember
the day-old Times arrived
by mail and spread on Grandma's
table, how it shouted
the death in black letters
and we all stared at the face.

But I am wrong. The death
occurred in March, the sixth
of March when it was cold,
snow and school--the year
we learned cursive and the solar
system and the boys

were bullies. On Grandma's
table there was a bowl
of zinnias like pinwheels.
Sitting in her chair I could read
the words, looking at the terrible
face with its black
mustache, its hair swept
back like a movie star. Perhaps
he smiled a little, but the eyes
were cruel. Perhaps he
rode a black stallion
wearing a fur hat to Tchaikovsky's
Fourth Symphony, the part
where the little birch tree whirls
in a tempest of violins. He'd have
a saber too like the Cossacks
in the movie at Carrie's birthday
who rode so close we saw their shouting
mouths and teeth and ducked
behind the seats till the music
swept them away. It was

summer. Mom wore
her flowered dress. Frowning
at the face she said he even wanted
to come here, but now
he was dead, and no one
scolded when we ran
barefoot or slammed the screen
door, and after lunch we would
go swimming while the house breathed
its heartbeat over the lawn. Looking

at the face I promised
every day to read the tiny
words that made no pictures
I knew of Cossacks--or Peter
with the wolf by the tail (and if
you listen carefully you
can hear the duck quacking
in his belly). Looking
at the face something
shifted; I was different,
responsible for understanding
the words that meant the big
things like death and freedom, that had
no pictures. Sitting in grandma's
chair I wasn't sure I wanted
them, just black and white
on the page. They had no
selves like things you could
pick or smell, like the bowl

of zinnias, which were themselves--
p^ink and yellow pinwheels and part
of the self that was the house,
the droning mower, the smell
of cut grass, And beyond--the self
we were part of that rayed
out beyond the fence to the whole
world, sweet and green and not

death. Which is how I know
it was summer and later
it would be time and we
would go swimming.