Daughter of the Rain New and Selected Poems

Gail Gauldin Moore

deerbrook editions

Acknowledgements

My thanks to, Marjorie Power, Sonia Greenfield and Maura Harvey.

Special thanks to those who saw me in my own eyes and gave me writing room, especially Brendan Constantine, Christine Candleland, but also Annette Robinson and Gedda Ives.

Poems in this book have previously appeared in Rivertalk, Cedar Hills Press, Verve, Cedar Hills Review, Brick House, Daybreak, Prophetic Voices, California Quarterly, Stepping Stones Magazine, Rise Up Review, and Stand Magazine.

Prelude

Dear Aubrey,

I go to bed with my Dream horse every night.

In the morning, I’ll tell you a poem.

You are my poem. You are my dream horse.

I hope you like me. I am your poem.

But I like you, Aubrey. And hope you are loving to me.

All the time, I am loving you.

Shannon (three years)

“In the gifted child, it is not so much the terrible things that happen to us in childhood, but the terrible things we do to ourselves, to keep them from happening again.” —Alice Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child

“The poems to come are for you and me and are not for most people.” —e.e. cummings

Queen's House

The queen of hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day. The knave of hearts he stole those tarts and took them quite away

This is for you, Susan Roanoke leaving by a side door, having left your dreams outside. This is for you –half proud—half repentant. To you, most certainly.

No one can say you did not dance in time, or rise to fall and rise to fall again, or slap the moon’s face when love went old and dry.

No one can say you did not make a leap for grace. One cannot say you did not try.

I myself think of you with enormous affection. But I must mention you hidden face, disfigured by the accidents of birth and place.

I’m glad I found my tongue in time to ministrant against your aptitude for disorder and disgrace. Still, you should know that we admire your effort to be discreet.

Fall’s child, coming lately into Spring, stay awake and spend awhile inside the house of Kings. And praise the Queen of Hearts as well, for the Knave he stole her plan. Still she moves with grace through careful days and over stunted land.

Tincture of Days

The world is a bridge. Cross it, but build no house upon it. —Jesus Christ

I am an old man locked in the house of my unknowing,

mixing paths with time, closing seams, crossing bridges, building houses on them,

wearing disingenuous clothes in July heat.

Remember when we were children how much room there was?

And who was the lover who whispered my name, in days of rogue and plenty—in days of root and bird?

I am an old man on sea-ground swelling, wearing warm clothes in summer.

I am an old man in settled time. My hair is the color of ancient sin.

I speak from the poetry of my senses and the hands of days are thin.

Book Covers

You must not think of me when I am dead. You must think of me now, small and stalled,

embittered by the lack of always and the straight-laced rejections of the moon.

Annul the wind. Put all prayers to rest, fold up the corners of the world.

Then and now won’t mix and my dreamscapes are up in arms.

Days have started to sprint or sputter. Yet we are great books in an obscure cover.

Should I put cucumbers on my eyes? Buy only grass-fed meat?

I’ll call you soon, not later than sometime, but before the wind changes your hair.

Ramifications

I write about ramifications: a lost work of art, islands.

I don’t care about the Gypsy Moth who seems to have no calling.

I write about bones which are unbearable by themselves.

A cricket is singing somewhere. His singing is strong, then weak.

His trouble is unexplainable.