Three Poems:

Immigrant

My mother called this morning, kept trailing away,
or off, with complaints about her failure
to make it, alone in the house, the night being
long, no one to talk to, blaming, in part, America,
hating the mess we've found, or made this year.
"What is America?" she said. "A hole in the water.
What have we gained but poison and illness?"
Her whole message, a cry, though still she asked
what I would eat for lunch. Back in bed,
I listened awhile to the furnace. Then, dressed,
passed the same books and papers spread on the floor,
and out, to the snow, the crows in the park.

Almond Tree

I miss smashing the green-covered shells,
peeling the bitter skin, putting the slippery seed
on my tongue.

I miss the outhouse. I miss the wind blowing
through the hole in the floor.

I miss the small door to the fallen balcony
and the swallows' nests and their tunnels
stuck to the stone.

I miss the smell of fried eggs, potatoes, and cheese.

I miss the wood-paneled radio with the voices
from Tirane and Skopje.

I miss the dogs at midnight and the church gates
and the steep forest behind the cemetery.

I miss the bundles of tree limbs, the crackling fires,
the crazy bright fields of tan and clover.

I miss going down hills on wood sleds
made from old chairs, greased with pig lard.

I miss the barbed wire fence around the orchard
and climbing the cherry trees and watching ants
on the bark and flicking them off my fingers.

I miss the spring water. I miss the plug to the tap
to the spring water, the cloth and wood.

I miss the walk to the spring. I miss the black sky.
I miss the ghosts in the holy air.

I Will Sleep

What will you do in the village alone in the house
with your mother gone in autumn with winter coming?
I will sleep with the terrifying and brave blackness at night
of the village and of the house. I will sweep the yard
of plum leaves and pear leaves, with the short broom,
my back bent. Sweep, clean, tidy up, my arm repeating
a motion until I am woven with my dead into a clear
and living braid. Then I will sit in one of the chairs
by the white table and wait on the wind, the birds,
the ancient scent of the house, joyous and crying.

Tryfon Tolides
An Almost Pure Empty Walking
The National Poetry Series
Selected by Mary Karr
Penguin Books

Copyright © Tryfon Tolides, 2006.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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