In Ireland, Meeting the Ghosts, and: Rhododendron Glade, Kew Gardens
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In Ireland, Meeting the Ghosts
Because our laundry, even the thinnestnightgown, was still two days damp,the pants and jackets joined usfor the evening. Draped about the cottage,bored by our conversation,they began to commune with presencespeeling themselves from the corners.
Women alone (one widow, one philanderer'swife, and one aging professional),we thought ourselves equalto any ghosts, even after the albumshowed us men buriedto the waist in bog, cutting reeds.Through the worst of the storm we sat up,read in the Irish Times of a mandrowned in his field, two more deadoff the Cliffs of Culloo,while ghosts tapped from the shelves,ran through wires, blocking,for whole seconds, our electricity.
Finally, shades of men sat with us,stared at the peat fire, thin legsand pale voices, exuding drybreath, sulphurous. They were notour men, though they could take usto the fiery bed where a husbandstrokes his mistress, the silentcircular ripples a widowdrops through, the numbing [End Page 39] poison an ex-lover pressesinto a woman's mouth.
How we wanted to go, howwe resisted following our guestsacross the knife edge of a leaf,between the river and the foam,along the ravine, down, into.Following our ghosts.
Rhododendron Glade, Kew Gardens
During the mid-May flower showyou'd think the royal gardenershad found an elixir to force blossomsor hung a million of the most exquisitedreams, all the bushes big as housesfull of neighbors you've always liked:
the flamboyant Fuchsias who often sailthe Mediterranean and outshinethe quieter Pinks, who make do with lessbut keep their children in the best schools;the Yellows who like it darkat night for stargazing, at odds withthe Reds, whose parties spill into the streets;and the Whites, who play a bamboo xylophone,recite the Tao, and keep Chinese pheasants.
No one's home and the doors are open.Inside, cool floors scented with bark [End Page 40] and leafmeal. You'll be surprised at the space,the yet, yet, yet, when you say quiet.And the privacy, allowing you to reinventyourself: You can do a hundred chin-ups,take your pulse, and rehydrate.Or trace your roots back to William the Conqueroras you look down on the lower classes.Or you might find you've been discovered,the hottest new soprano, the coloraturaof your phrasing matched only by blossomsin the highest registers.
Susan Elizabeth Howe's first collection, Stone Spirits, won the publication award of the Redd Center for Western Studies. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, Shenandoah, Southwest Review, and other journals. She is a reviewer and contributing editor for Tar River Poetry. She and her husband, Cless Young, live in a small town in central Utah; they have also taught and traveled in Europe.
