Regales & Carpenter – February 2012

Jackie Regales and Dayna Carpenter traded art and writing. Dayna shared this painting, “Asleep in the Car,” with Jackie:

In response, Jackie wrote this poem:

Pantheon

Her sweet sleeping face is beautiful;
I sigh, I shudder, I breathe deep.

Will I become Demeter, clutching
Persephone, fated to be guardian
And nightmare too, as she chokes
Down pomegranate seeds to be free
From my needy love?
Or will we shower each other
With lightning fury, hurling thunder?
Will she become Athena, roaring forth
From my splitting head?
So much seems within my power,
If I can forge myself in fire,
Become the perfect mother.

Never more than when she sleeps
Do I feel the cosmic joke I play
When I believe my children,
Who see no greater god than me.

* * * * *

Jackie shared this poem with Dayna:

Chant for Cooks

I don’t need you, Buddha,
I am baking, with butter.
Eggs are cracked, rich vanilla
In a teaspoon, copper cutters
For cookies I’ll eat by the fistful.

Meditation is not for me,
nirvana no destination
I know.  Here I can simply be
A doughy self, who begins to forget
All that has lately left me hardened.

Yearning is impossible:
no space in the recipe, packed
brown sugar, melted chocolate, crumbled pecans.
The heat uncurls into the room
And my hands make the shapes, swift and sure.

I am whole here, in this kitchen. In the dark,
I hear wind whistle, beginning to quicken.
My hands clasped tight now, against the cold,
my mind satisfied, fed already. The day
melts away, jagged edges smoothed
by sugar and certainty.

Soon, inside, it will be my time to rise.
Once the time is right, I’ll smell it in the air.

In response, Dayna made this painting, “Sunshine & Flour”: