It was all that she had preserved from her childhood
This book
Made by her Irish uncle
About a family
Of small insects
Who lived in a miniature castle
Balanced on the branch of a tree.

drawing by Slobodan Dan Paich and text by Moira Roth

She turned the book’s next page,
already knowing what it would show
–a castle

That housed the laboratory
Of the Alchemist.

drawing by Slobodan Dan Paich and text by Moira Roth

For a moment,
She closed the book
And stared out at the ocean,
Looking at the setting sun through
The fragment of tear-stained, brown glass
That she always carried in her purse.

The she turned
The next page,
And
Watched, enchanted,
A butterfly
Speeding away from the columned portal.

Forgotten lines of W.B. Yeats, the Irish poet,
About his Tower with its winding stairway and windows,
–learned when she was a child in Dublin–
Sprung into her head:
“Upon the dusty, glittering windows cling,
And seem to cling upon the moonlit skies,
Tortoiseshell butterflies . . .

For hours she slowly turned the pages,
Back and forth,
Accompanied by memories of reading it as a child
Blended with memories of her uncle
–his strong Irish accent, his infectious laugh, his endless tale-telling.
Finally she turned to the last page,
–seemingly far away from the image of the first one
with its miniature castle precarious balanced on a branch–
To see a sinking jagged iceberg

But perhaps it was only
That the stone and wood had turned to ice
Which was now melting away?

]]> http://moiraroth.com/2010/06/turning-the-pages-part-5/feed/ 0 http://moiraroth.com/2010/05/the-taste-of-summer/ http://moiraroth.com/2010/05/the-taste-of-summer/#comments Sat, 22 May 2010 06:30:33 +0000 Admin http://moiraroth.com/?p=346 May 22, 2010

drawing by Slobodan Dan Paich and text by Moira Roth

Hanging on the clothesline
Was a dress made out of flowers and sprigs.
She put it on
And its scent reminded her
Of the taste of honey
–honey that as a child
She had gathered from the bees’ nest
In the orchard of her parent’s home,
Outside Prague.

She walked slowly toward the river,
Savoring the remembered taste
And her childhood memories
Of her mother reading to her
From Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.

She had fallen asleep on the beach,
Sitting in the Chair of Memory,
And was bewildered by the distant light,
When she finally woke up.
Only slowly did she recognize it
–the dawn of a new day.

Sitting,
With eyes closed,
On the Chair of Memories
He heard the cry of a raven
As he fingered
The painted leaf
Feeling
The shape of the Alchemist’s egg
Encrusted on its surface.

Sitting,
With eyes closed,
On the Chair of Memories
He saw
The park of his childhood
–the two great columns
of electricity and steel,
And behind the scented jasmine bushes.

Just inside the Gate
Stood the Chair of Memories
Where visitors would sit,
Close their eyes
And dream of the past.
In one dream
A visitor found herself
Walking past a row of trees,
Listening to the Song of the Wind.