Women's History Month: Sunday, March 14, 2021: Viola Weinberg's Two Poems "I Have Fallen" and "Don't Drink the Water"

I Have Fallen

Not for the first or last time

not gracefully for a person

of my size, age or hair color

not predictably, yet not surprisingly

 

But deep and hard, as if

the painted concrete floor

was love itself, as if I were young

and rubbery, tough as a buttress

 

Those who jump to my aid,

the three men who lift me, seem

unaware of what good men they are

rescue dogs, they grin like Labradors

 

Unfortunately, I have fallen and

My face is scarlet red and my friends

worry, and my sense of dignity

is blue as the goose egg on my skull

 

Sore as Lucrecia held by the nape

Angry as Conchita and her rolling red cape

beaten but not defeated, an elderly Joan of Arc

with so many deeds incomplete and unspoken

 

Lifted by three strong men, I grumble like

a bag of crackers as it meets the rolling pin

Entirely mortified as I come up, sudden as a helix

one man says, more than once, “Do you stand?”

 

Yes, but where I stand, I do not know

 

©2020 Viola Weinberg

 

Don’t Drink the Water

 

Deity, legend, mother tree or wayward cloud

Don’t take her now, not Auntie who concocted cakes

that made men cry by poking holes in the top

and drizzling chocolate syrup, waving it like

the flag of a fertile woman against the unknown

 

She who got me in the habit of

convertible rides in the heat of night

Wonderful auntie who took me merrily

to the little graveyard where she laughed

about the unthinkable day she would rest

there, “Bring a picnic! Bring a lawn chair!

 

Come for a visit, but don’t stay long!”

Then, as we walked among the graves

of her forebears, gritty pioneer women

to a one, some who died in fires—

some who died behind a groaning plow—

women who fell in brutal childbearing

 

Some who fought death, one burned as a witch

 

I wore a huge black hat when her turn came,

An old man sat casually on the family stone and fell

As if a well of bones closed around him and everything

locked around her: our bones, the good times gone

the charms on her gorgeous wrists tinkling, her good looks

sad and beautiful, as if the melting snow

 

© 2021 Viola Weinberg

Viola Weinberg was the first Poet Laureate of Sacramento, CA, serving as a literary ambassador to sprawling Sacramento’s schools, libraries, parks, museums, government lunch hours and nightclubs. With ten books written, Weinberg also founded The Tough Old Broads, a group of four women with 200 years of writing between them. Together, they wrote Tough Enough, available on Cold River Press.
In her working life, she worked in radio and TV news, before joining a think tank and conducting private foundation grantmaking. She retired to rural Sonoma County where she writes in a yurt. She is a Glenna Luschei Fellow.

National Women's Month: Viola Weinberg's "Dear Pablo Neruda no. 335"

 You’ve always said to face your fears
            to charge forward
            to see them as they are
You said that about fascists
You said that about phobias
You said that about death, Pablo

Some battles cannot be won, you know
But today, sitting on the edge of the pool
            where lately I have tried to
            grow comfortable in the water
            my fear suddenly surrendered
I listened to the great ebb and flow of it

One boundless organism that shimmied at the surface
I saw the oneness of it, the unified field of it
I saw the allure and rapture of it, I saw it all
            and felt something new, pleasure
            with the prism of it, delight in its mighty wave
I let go of the side and dropped, wanting to be covered in it

Once in, I saw a thousand other things
            and heard the songs the sirens sing
I understood fish and salamanders and swimmers
            for the first time
I observed the eddies, ridges and swells
            of water’s immense lens

I saw the rings of motion in a swimmer’s arm
            lifted in unconscious sync
            turning like Buddha himself spun the wheels
            around and around in cataleptic flow
            fingers poised and elegant, heads turning
The swimmers took their miraculous, measured breath

I slipped under lane lines, I went to the middle
I saw my own ripple in the ever-growing circles
            still holding my head high, I sighed
            and fell into something mystical and greater
            I found my purpose— to go nowhere and everywhere
I felt my lungs open and relax, my hands unknot
  
As I did, you moved under me, moving me
            to your beautiful island
            graceful on your course
And I, unapologetic and full of idiot grace
            moved my legs like a frog
            and chased the water’s ruffled lace

© 2017 Viola Weinberg

 Viola Weinberg was the first Poet Laureate of Sacramento, CA (2000-2002). She was named Glenna Luschei Distinguished Poet at the 2008 San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival. Published in everything from prayer flags to the internet, she has four books of poetry, including the traditionally styled Japanese "Enso" with Mario Uribe. Viola Weinberg lives in rural Sonoma County with her husband, photographer Peter Spencer.