Poetry by Jonell Esme Jel'enedra

Written by Jonell Esme Jel'enedra

Wednesday, 05 March 2008

Editor’s note: This week in Poetry Corner we feature the work of Jonell Esme Jel’enedra, who has lived and worked in the Santa Cruz community since 1980. She is the author of “Stilt Walking at Midnight” (Hummingbird press, 2004), a recipient of a Mary Lonnberg Smith award, and the Quarry West poetry award, First Prize, 1999.

Lullabies for an Insomniac

It was the summer
of the boy who was so shy he had no words
of his own
but still every evening would come knocking—
hurl his long body across the threshold,
dive into the farthest corner of the couch
snatching at the volumes of World Book as he sank
into the cushions.
He was a boy on the verge of drowning;
that encyclopedia clutched in his over-large hands,
a life ring.
And I, the girl who dreaded sleep like an iron lung
where dreams pressed down heavy
and cold as steel,
I would curl into the deep shag carpet and listen
to him read aloud whatever page he turned to,
let him lull me like water,
rock me with his softest consonants and syllables,
find my rest.

I don’t remember now how he ever came to be
in my house.
Or know what it was that drew him back
night after night to read aloud for hours;
of Yerkes-Dodson’s dancing mice
who tossed their heads and ran in circles
like prancing circus ponies,
or of the spiny nicker nuts that sail the trade routes
of the western seas,
or of Zanzibar, the invention of the spark plug,
how to excavate a geoduck.
I don’t remember even what he looked like,
although I seem to recall he was startling
and beautiful and gangly as a sapling in the spring.
I only remember his voice:
how it wrapped around my body,
a lullaby sung long throughout the terrible night.

Lot’s Wife

His name is Mr. Lot
but the children call “Hey Empty!”
and run, giggling.

All day he squats in the open field,
hunched beside the salt-lick,
and weeps.

He is carving it into a beautiful woman.
It is his wife, he says.
“I can taste her,” he says.
“She lives in my tears.”

Each dawn, the simple-faced sheep gather.
They kiss Lot’s wife good morning,
smoothing her curves
with their black and lovely tongues.

The Mystics Await the Big Bang

The way that even midnight is backlit
through a billion starry pinholes
and rents in the fabric of the dark—

The way that jet planes unstitch
the early morning sky
to reveal its lining of light—

Scientists tell us the universe is expanding
and we can see from the overstuffed clouds
leaking like batting into the skies

this place is splitting apart at the seams.

We put on our dark glasses and stand
together in the field of winter poppies,
bending toward the fat furred buds

in happy anticipation.
Awaiting the moment
they will burst into beauty

and we will be blinded by beauty and light.

Where Holy Water Comes From

Behind the Celestial Laundry
Beatrice whistles while she works
although angels are never as simple
as sheets, tend to be a surly bunch,
don’t like their wings clipped
to the line.

Still, she thinks they are exquisite
spun light
the way they hover and preen
like huge fierce swans
tacked against the sky

and the water that pools beneath them
anointment of agate-shine,
moon jellies, mica
shimmering nacreous
off their feathered dripping
wings.