: Cheryl Romney-Brown
: Circling Home
: Digitalia
: 9780916379599
: 1
: CHF 47.50
:
: Kunst, Literatur
: English
: 126
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: PDF

Ms. Rush’s poetry both enlightens and sustains as it explores the past and anticipates the future. By taking uncompromising risks, she makes startling connections between love and death, loss and victory, and what she accomplishes with her poetry has been compared to what Eugene O’Neill did in the theatre: an in-depth exploration and re-evaluation of the much loved myths of the American family and American Dream. As a descendent of the original Mormon pioneers and child of the West, she knows her subject matter intimately. She questions what values we should choose to propel us safely into the twenty-first century and by peeling away accepted layers of hypocrisy, she captures intense pain and ecstasy with both clarity and passion. 

“Her poems are marked by acute observation.... Penetrating insight presented in clear and compelling language.”-Senator Eugene McCarthy.

An Heirloom from Utah Pioneer Days (p. 6)

Hidden away in a drawer

beneath my lace nightgown

lies Gréât Grandmother`s

rosé sachet.

An extravagant luxury

born in thé heart

of thé désert. Cuttings

cradled across endless

plains, pétais dried

from prized bushes,

lovingly nurtured

from parched sand.

Rare rosé pétais to saturate

a bridai bower. Musky

scent to soften hungry

children`s screams.

Opiate to salve

broken promises,

unfulfilled dreams.

Like frankincense

and myrrh, a célébration

of hope

in thé désert

passed from mother

to daughter, mother

to daughter, mother

to daughter.

At night, in my lace

gown, I remember

my future.

Photographs

1 (1846)

In thé rain-soaked crowd

at thé end of thé wharf,

she clutches thé loden cape

around her frail body.

It whips in thé sea wind.

She presses a handkerchief

to wet cheeks.

Her determined hand

once again brushes

thé dark hair away

from stinging lids.

Thèse eyes must seize

his silhouette,

burn forever thé curve

of her first-born`s

cleft chin into her mind.

As thé tall ship escapes

thé English dock, she lets

go of thé cape, waves.

Her palm at first beats

thé air like hummingbird`s

wings, but then slows down

like thé pendulum on death`s

clock. The small hand slaps

at thé wind long after

thé ship has sailed beyond sight,

toward Zion, God, America.

Dusk slips into thé ship`s empty

berth. The crowd déserts

thé angry sea. Her worn body alone

faces west.

The heaving deck shudders

with shivering passengers

reluctant to go below

as they capture their last look

at family, wave their farewell

to England. George Romney stands erect

at thé stern, a man about twenty,

garbed in black, clutching"thé Book

of Mormon" in both hands. His tearless

face, open with faith, stares west.

2 (1989)

My now grown-up son`s picture captures

his blond curls, blue eyes. A broad

smile floods his two-year-old face.

Snapped before he rocked with pain:

ear infections, allergies, dyslexia.

Last y ear frozen water pipes burst, deluging

thé basement. Ail of our family albums

ruined. I rummage in my large black

purse trying to find thé picture. My fingers

grasp only small change, paper clips,

a bright red lipstick, an old bail-point

pen.
Table of Contents12
Foreword: Senator Eugene M[sup(c)]Carthy16
Preface: Cheryl Romney-Brown18
I. PIONEERS20
An Heirloom from Utah Pioneer Days21
Photographs23
Inherit the Promise26
For Pioneers29
Mexican Pilgrimage31
A Family Story35
Shadow37
Sundays Below the Rocky Point39
A Woman's Explanation to her Dead Father on Why She Marches Against the Bomb40
In the Crook of His Neck42
For Mother44
Anatomy of an Arranged Marriage46
The Burning Tree48
Pounding Dust50
II. SHATTERED HOUSES53
Rituals54
Brown Wrens58
Gauguin59
Prodigal Fields61
A Peaceable Kingdom64
The Victims66
Mirage67
A Day in Nantucket69
Mother's Gift71
Waiting for the X-Ray73
Searching74
For Les76
The County Fair78
Wings80
Christina's Passion82
Lament84
On the First Day of Spring86
September in Nonquitt88
III. CIRCLING HOME90
To My Eighteen-Year-Old Son91
Taking Leave of the Farm92
One Cold Icy Day94
Across a Roman Piazza96
The Embrace98
Lifelines99
The Arc101
Connections102
Climbing Mount St. Helena in August106
Beauty and Birth108
And then Daybreak110
Through My Secret Garden112
Games116
Smiles118
Orestian Rite119
Circling Home121
Notes122
Biographies123