'The Ways of Water' and Other Poems, by Carol Hamilton
Art by Chris F
The Ways of Water
“The cure for susto, soul sickness, … is found
in the voice of water’s motion.”
-Linda Hogan
They would not believe it, the Zapotec girls.
The English potter drove them to the Gulf of Tehuatepec
to show them the sea. They would not believe it was water.
Water cannot move on its own, It falls or you pour it.
That is what their tribal wisdom told them,
and Hogan’s stories taught her another truth.
We all do, you know ….. have our own stories ….
and they are vast seas we sometimes try to build
bridges over …. and sometimes we are so sure
we know what water really is we launch torpedoes
through it and hope to blast whatever it is
we do not believe right out of the water.
Proof
I did not believe my geology professor.
What did he know? Too fantastical.
Made up? I needed more than words,
his or experts’. Who knows what I wanted?
But with my children on Little Glasses River,
river dried to trickle in southern Oklahoma,
those ancient seas once here turned real,
sharks’ teeth imbedded in ammonite wheels,
ridged and spiraling, or in chunks
of limestone from some other
ancient sea creature, then later
crinoid stems and brachiopods
galore, magical shout-outs.
Those teeth now glitter
from their deadweight tombs
around my backyard pond,
someday, perhaps a find beneath
another vanished sea beneath
another era of uplift and soil building
and drought and slow stone-layering
and minerals and water and winds
and moving plates all shifting
and grinding and scraping out
scoffing sounds at human timelines
and the tiny twitter of opinion
espoused by a silly young girl.
24 Hours
I am each minute,
become the chosen hour,
yet even moreso the unchosen.
And so I pick over this sweeping
of a second hand, cast a glance
at all made-of-anxiety time behind me,
there see a scroll of days
rolling back as far
as I can see even as it wraps
me in its embrace.
This chrysalis is familiar
and its silence promises no comfort.
My voice’s absence tells all.
The Law and the Art of Ambiguity
“But Moses implored the Lord his God.”
Exodus 43:4
The rabbis dispute and dispute,
a habit, a rollick, a wrestle,
then judgments given. The People
of God argue with Him, change
His mind, remind Him, Just because
You said something doesn’t
make it right. You can change
Your mind. In some hearts
the Law turns rigid …. no Lot
can plead, no Moses can argue,
no Jacob can wrestle. Their Jahweh
admits error, re-thinks harsh judgments.
The world cannot live without mercy,
without “new ways for new days”;
But if we walk our path, destination firm
in the distance, no looking side
to side to see forests or distant mountains
or flowers by the path or beaten
and wounded ones lying by the trail,
our steps to the goal may be consistent.
Straight. But what pleasures of the journey
will we have to share with the Host
when we arrive at the welcome feast?
What stories will we have to tell?
One Costume
Every July as storyteller for Bible School
I was handed a story and the same shroud
to Shazam! myself into a Galilean woman,
St. Paul, Queen Esther with a fake Egyptian collar
from those wild jewelry days of my youth.
They brought the children in groups,
four-year-olds through sixth grade,
and I told my tale, over and over.
One year in the country by a little pond—
The Sea of Galilee — as I waited
between shuttles —I watched
some weasel-like mother
carry one kit after another to safety
from our frightening invasion of her home.
Strangely, the children believed me.
Occasionally one would remain tranced
when the others rose from the floor
to play or paste or color or cut
The stunned one would finally ask
how I got there and did Jesus send me
or how old was I? I remember a friend
of long ago who told me how he felt
when he played Santa Claus every winter,
connecting him somehow
to eyes in another world with him.
Storytelling is Magic I named my class
in which we told Greek myths, folk tales,
family lore at our school for gifted students
who came to us one day a week from sixteen
elementary schools. We shared how just voice
can conjure magic circles or old Ireland or mysteries
still hovering along the streets of Mexico, how it
can take us together into other worlds with heroes
and scoundrels without flicker of screen
or darkened theater, a place of our own pictures
dreamed even as we breathe in and out together.
Carol Hamilton has retired from teaching 2nd grade through graduate school in Connecticut, Indiana and Oklahoma, from storytelling and volunteer medical translating. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has published 19 books and chapbooks:: children’s novels, legends and poetry. She has been nominated ten times for a Pushcart Prize. She has won a Southwest Book Award, Oklahoma Book Award, David Ray Poetry Prize, Byline Magazine literary awards in both short story and poetry, Warren Keith Poetry Award, Pegasus Award and a Chiron Review Chapbook Award.