The Poems Of Katharine Redfield Carle: Achieving Enlightenment

Born during the Great Depression, Katharine Redfield Carle grew up as a tomboy in New Haven. As a retired travel agent, she has journeyed widely, and as a Christian and Buddhist, she tries to practice the Zen proverb that urges us to “chop wood and carry water” as a way to achieve enlightenment.

She is the author of three books: “Enter the Wood,” “Divided Eye,” and “The Uncommon Nativity of Common Things.” As writer-in-residence at Seabury Life Community in Bloomfield, Carle leads a writing group, plans literary events, and often introduces speakers. She is a member of the Connecticut Coalition of Poets Laureate.

— CT Poet Laureate Rennie McQuilkin

The Climb

It’s about climbing the Rock,

one root at a time,

encouraging one another,

not to “conquer”

the mountain, but to embrace

her earth, soil, rocks.

We three crawl up, belly to earth,

getting the feel of her,

of each other.

Sitting on Bemis Falls’ granite,

thousands of gallons a minute flowing over,

we put our hands out, feel a power

beyond us, in us,

in the hands we reach out to touch:

the power of three, each of us a torrent.

Bill

Stubborn old man

curled in his corner

like a scruffy dog,

his house assailed by stale smoke

from the broken pipe stem

he clenches in his jaw.

T-shirt with holes,

pants that never knew a crease,

crippled feet that shoes don’t fit.

Days’ stubble on his jaw,

hair carelessly chopped

in the few minutes he can steal

from his ceaseless care

of the old wife who sits beside him.

She droops in her corner, a sunflower

gone to seed, head heavy,

stem bent, nodding.

Body so thin he could count every bone.

Mind as vacant as a deserted house.

God knows this old man’s worth

who gives his strength for her

last days on earth.

46 Hartley

Now it comes back.

His man’s hand guiding mine,

we have pressed initials into the wet cement

of a footer: our first collaboration.

Seventy-three years

have passed since we put our heads together

in his basement realm of tools,

reading his diagram

for what the footer will help support.

Standing by my initials or his (they are the same)

we see the diagram come to life:

a flight of stairs and a landing

emerging out of the unoccupied air

as we inhale the wet mud odor

of lime, silica, and water,

savor the smell of wood new cut for stringers.

I am my Dad’s helper, apprentice,

glowing in his approval. I am not yet the girl

he hoped would be a boy.

Bodies

By unspoken agreement

we do not look at each other’s bodies.

Oh I peek, but I do not let the others

see that I see.

Perhaps they peek the same way at me.

But in truth, there isn’t much to see.

Here we all droop; some of us stoop

in the getting in or the getting out.

Here comes the Rabbi. I can tell him from

the flap-flop of his arms as he swims along

on his backstroke lap.

The man with the artificial leg

water-walks, making scarcely a ripple

as he paddles up and down.

In the corner is one who ceaselessly sings

World War II songs.

Now long-limbed, lean women streak down the lanes;

a bevy of beauties flashes by,

a school of multi-colored tropical fish.

An indolent young man

who takes his rounded limbs for granted

presides over the pool.

Belying his straight spine, he sprawls in exhaustion

in his lifeguard’s chair while we, the truly expended,

put ourselves to tests that tell us we are still alive.

Back in the locker room, I swaddle myself in a towel,

put one withered leg in panty hose, turn to see myself

in the mirror and meet my younger self, superimposed.

A tan young woman, all points and juts

and black bushiness at the joining

fills her black bra with flamboyant breasts.

I pull on my undershirt.

The Art of Loving

Don’t know when I began

to love my body.

Was it when I first noticed the web

of purple spiders on my legs,

or when I caught a senile keratosis

(my doctor called it) on my cheek,

or when breast-tightening exercises

did nothing to prevent The Sag?

I shall not catalog further the desperate

measures my body has taken.

She’s like a mother you’ve parked in

an old folks’ home, far too busy for her.

She’s feeling deserted. No one

to file her nails, hair left lank for days.

In tears, I turn to her, reaffirm my love,

promise to shower time on her.

I honor her now, anoint her rough skin,

pamper her with Pears, Creme Radiance.

Piper

“Diddle diddle dumpling,

Diddle diddle

Diddle diddle, diddle…”

is all she says—no, sings in a sandpaper voice,

a minute of a woman, brown, not an ounce

of fat, hair braided in neat rows

flat against her small head,

eyes hugely open, searching,

limbs bird-like bone, skin taut.

Here in Long-term Care

they call her Piper, this woman of no age.

“Diddle diddle dumpling,

Diddle diddle…”

At the table where they have seated her

an angry white brandishes a newspaper

to strike the young black woman

who brings her pills, cajoling her

in dulcet tones, like a brook over stones.

Piper sits straight, intensity itself,

every sinew engaged, rises up,

has new words, first time in months:

“We all goin’ to the same place.”

Ephphatha

Be opened. Mark 7:34

“I forgot my water; going to buy one,”

I call, as our group settles in at a picnic table

while waiting for the ferry.

A woman at the next table looks up.

“No need,” she says, “I’ve got one here,”

reaching deep in the dark of her battered backpack.

She is an immense woman

with a face like risen dough, sweating heavily in a loose

thrift shop house dress.

I don’t want to take water from her.

It’s been in her backpack for God knows how long

with only He knows what.

She pulls out a full bottle of Poland Spring.

It looks good, has not been opened. Her smile

is radiant, and a light comes on. When I try to pay her

she protests, and we fall into conversation.

Her husband comes to fish, and she says

he has the day off from teaching in the Projects

where they live. We might be sisters, two old gals

away from home. It is good to drink this gift

of water from her.

Fighting WWII

We were fifty passengers on a bus

rolling through the flat German breadbasket,

between Gertwiller and Boxwiller, on a grey

Thanksgiving kind of day—looking for landmarks

that would take our husbands back to their war.

From the rear came a shout: “We gotta get out.

Stop! This is where I got mine!”

Only a farmhouse and barn against monotonous terrain.

But we trooped off the bus and followed

to the back door of the farmhouse where we

surprised a French farmer having breakfast—

napkin around his neck, crumbs clinging to his mustache—

with a request to look into his barn.

In the barn we heard it all.

“With fire coming from the distant woods, we took cover

in this barn. Before dawn the door opened;

we thought it was one of us come back from taking a leak.

It was the Bosch. They killed the two guys

next to me, wounded me in the leg, would have killed me too

but one of our guys returned fire and two Germans

fell square on top of me, knocked me out, but hid me.

When I came to, none-a-you guys was there. I found a rake

for a cane and staggered out, but you had all gone.

You guys deserted me!”

Silence as we mounted the bus. Underway,

the unit’s colonel came up the aisle:

“We didn’t desert you, son. We came back twice to

find you—no luck, and headquarters ordered us to move out.”

Embraces, tears. Next day, his wife searched me out to say

it was the first night he’d slept soundly.

Downtown Church

In the 1840s brownstone church

the news is bad.

In the heart of a neglected downtown,

it has been a splendid Episcopalian cathedral,

but the city is now empty of people.

This August service is sparsely attended

and those in pews stand out

for the distance around them.

At the postlude when the organ

thunders with joy

for the end of the service,

a child tears past me in a buttercup dress,

dark hair streaming after,

runs pell-mell up the center aisle

and altar stairs, to the organ.

She’s the image of concentration,

crouched down near the pedal keyboard,

her chin cupped in her hands.

She wants to know how everything works.

We unite in laughter and hope,

the old and young, white and brown of us.

Simon

“You want me to what?” I said to the centurion

but he struck me on the chest, one mean blow

that pushed me back into the crowd, and I’m a big man.

He growled and grabbed the cross

from this poor bloody bastard

who didn’t even have sandals, beaten so badly

he was disfigured, wearing just a loin cloth. And his head!

It was all matted with blood, mixed with unkempt hair

spiking up at all angles.

As you know, I had to go up to Jerusalem that day—

I had business on that street, the Street of the Oil Sellers.

I’d never seen so many people jammed into one stinking

alley—the cries of hawkers, lost children, din of hundreds,

slime of donkey dung, oils spilled, animal blood and vomit . . .

Well, they shoved this miserable beggar’s cross on me.

I can’t be looking out for everyone who’s run afoul

of Roman law. Let him carry his own cross, for God’s sake!

But where that street turned the corner, it got steep

going up the hill. He never would have made it,

so I took his cross and hauled it up,

though it bit into my shoulder, awkward unbalanced thing.

The man straightened, looked to the women following him,

crying and wailing.

He reached out with a tender touch to the older one.

Imagine!

Below the crest of the hill, I heard the ring

of steel on steel, and when I reached the Place of the Skull,

a squad of Roman soldiers was busy nailing

two other prisoners to their crosses. Blood rimmed the spikes.

The soldiers were about to seize this man, when he laid

his hand on me. It felt light, like a dove.

He murmured some words I didn’t understand,

though their sounds impressed themselves on me.

When they tore him from me and threw him to the ground,

I turned away.

Again I heard the ring of nails

but no sound—absolute silence from the man.

Then the crowd gasped with excitement; I looked around

to see the soldiers raising the crosses with the three men

nailed to them. I ran down the hill.

After all, I did have business.

Now, when I tell you of this, I still feel his touch on me,

still hear his words. Their meaning is beginning to come clear.

Sisters

In that calm before the storm, I sit

side by side with you, sisters in the sun,

wondering silently—when it has passed

what will have disappeared

and what will last?

The curve of your shoulder will remain

safe in the room behind my eye.

Your sense of humor will wash over me,

leaving the foam from its crest, laving

me in the salt of your life.

Poems copyright 2017 by Katharine Carle; CT Poet Laureate Rennie McQuilkin selects work for CT Poets Corner by invitation.