Jerry Martien

 

Excerpts from Pieces in Place
Published, 1999
ISBN: 0-942396-82-0
Blackberry Books
617 East Neck Road
Nobleboro, Maine 04555
Gulf of Maine Bioregion

Chutney: The Essential Recipe

                     --For E.T.

Take the fruit of forty-some full moons in August.
Pears will do in the absence of mangos. Onions--
just enough to make you feel about to cry.
Cut it as fine as you wish. Grate or slice. Don't
mash or pulp or lose the small distinctions.
Think of every pot and person in your life.
Go away for a day. Come back to the mess you left.
Remember how you did this before. Remember why.
It is time to think about the spices.
Root of ginger. Powder of mustard. Make it hot.
Now remember the sugar. Smile and get me to taste it.
Keep smiling. Those aren't really my tears. It can't
be September already. That can't be rain.
Allow for distraction and forgetfulness. Waken at 3 a.m.
Open the window so I can get up and close it again.
It's only another quart of vinegar in the air.
Another of those things we don't save or remember in time.
Stuck pots. Ideas of how things should taste or
what you will give people for Christmas this year.
Find enough jars. Put it up and try to forget it again.
Every day count the jars. In a few days or a week
open the first one with dinner. I will be the first to
say it's delicious. That it tastes of love and care.
Believe me when I ask for more.

 

Jazz Plays the Ocean        

                     --To Stuart

I always thought the ivories
Had something to do with the whales,
Which had something to do with scrimshaw.
With the wind blowing hard, the surf
A clatter of agates & clams &
Under foot & in the gut
All the way from the moon
Strings being pulled.
Fingers & deep-bodied currents
I keep thinking
Cutting the bone.

 

In Praise Of The Pacific

                     --For E.T.

The continent rises and moves west in the morning. Rises
     over this last ridge and lets itself down and
     out onto the Pacific.
From this room in the house on the last ridge looking out.
     House looking out over the mouth of the river.
     The white roses by the porch. White cats.
     Then the Pacific.
House at the end of the continent.
     Room where we waken and rise in the morning.

Out the window past the barn and horses the edge of earth
     folds over and into itself the last height of
     rock and coyote brush and wind-bent fir leaning
Out and down from the house. This room. This morning
     coffee. The kneaded pile of blankets at our feet
     The music still in the air.

Past the boundary of rock and breaking water she arches
     and lifts in the ancient-bodied motion upward and
     out to the rocking and drift and reach of clouded hands
Touching shoulder and breast and tangled hair. Hands
     reaching into morning clouds.
Bright and tangled in the morning western sky.

A few things hold together. There are places and moments
     of holding. The music. The cats and roses. This room.
Then the land's last falling to the sea.
     The sea rising to the clouds.
     A wind blows and clouds open above the house.
     A hawk holds in the wind above the mouth of the river.
Her mouth. Her eyes that open. Eyes that open and the
     morning sun slants down this valley and out
     beyond seeing or understanding. Eyes
That open. That blue. Earth and sky and the walls of this
     room fallen outward into blue.

To where she rides. Where in music and light forever
     she rides
     she rides.

 

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