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Excerpts from Calling Forth The Riches
by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke said,
If your everyday life seems poor,
don’t blame it; blame yourself;
admit to yourself that you are
not enough of a poet to call forth its riches;
because for the creator there is no poverty
and no poor indifferent place.
~Rilke
Ingrid has taken this to heart in her new chapbook of poems, Calling Forth The Riches.
Questions
I would like to lean with you on a dune
overlooking the voluptuous sea, and ask
what wind called you to this place?
Was it hunger, or a song?
What are the worlds you left behind?
Have you ever known a paradise?
Could you tell it to me now?
What pleasures do you count living here?
What foods are most delicious,
what aromas most divine?
How do you prefer the shape of the moon?
Do the seasons hold equal beauty,
is there one you favor more?
Who did you trust
riding through your tender years?
Do you envy the bliss of others,
or long for it,
equal to your own?
What do you court, worship,
gather to hold dear?
In my mind I'd like to kiss you,
but I'd ask these questions first.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
~~~~
If I could, I would pour
light into a spoon,
roll words of beauty into sweets,
fill the world with singing birds,
cartwheel through the heavens,
or somersault up the stairs…
I would do anything, if I could,
for you to feel better again.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
~~~~~
HOPE
I hung hope out with the laundry,
clothes-pinned tenderly
beside a pillowcase and two sheets.
I could tell she needed air,
a sweet puff of wind.
She needed to get warm again
basking in the sun.
After a few hours,
I came out with my basket
and took her down.
We both felt refreshed.
She said, "don't put me in the closet with the sheets.
Spread me on your table.
Let your guests spill their wine and crumbs of bread.
Wash me gently, put me back in the sun.
Lay me across your bed,
so I may warm you in the night.
Or put me on the children's bed,
that I might comfort their dreams.
Whatever you do," she said,
"include me.
It is the only way that I can live."
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
~~~~~
Pauper Stalking Joy
I don't recall our first meeting –
not the season, nor the hour of the day
when he first climbed the mountain in my heart,
and, finding a ledge there, gathered
branches for his sun-filtered shack.
Or when he stepped fresh into the morning, amid
clouds, cranes, peach blossoms and pines….
Maybe I was reading a little bit of haiku
or whirling as a dervish by the sea.
All I can tell you is within me resides
a pauper stalking joy.
He savors his peach with the few teeth he has left,
juice dripping down his prickly chin.
He bathes beneath a waterfall, stooping
to collect a smooth stone for his sack,
the sack that holds everything –
He is as much of me as the woman in my mirror,
hair neatly combed, lips agreeably red.
He pinches the baby's bottom
when I carry her up the stairs.
Doesn't give a fig for socks that match,
floors swept clean or windows free of grime.
He would cook bird's nest soup
with a bundle of words.
And, surely, a few berries for breakfast
would suffice.
He would send my children barefoot
into the big world, penniless,
with a confident assurance
that everything they need
is on the mountain in their hearts –
where the wind is sweet, the rain is warm,
and stars are laughing in the sky.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
The contents in my satchel
of attachments and desires ~
talismans of tenderness and failing,
are like the colors in a painter’s box,
spice on a gourmet’s stove,
tinder for a fire, or nectar for the bee…
The contents in my satchel
of attachments and desires ~
feathers & the mischievous gull’s wailing,
the vanity of a courtesan,
notes in a songbird’s lungs….
love in a bowl-shaped heart
overbrimming with the sea…
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
For CALLING FORTH THE RICHES PRODUCT PAGE, GO HERE.
