The Book with the Yellow Cover

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Book With The Yellow Cover, by John Moncure Wetterau
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Title: The Book With The Yellow Cover
Author: John Moncure Wetterau
Release Date: February 9, 2004 [eBook #11006]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK WITH THE YELLOW COVER***
Copyright (c) 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau
The Book With
The Yellow Cover
John Moncure Wetterau
(c) copyright 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons?Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. Essentially, anyone is free to copy, distribute, or perform this copyrighted work for?non-commercial uses only, so long as the work is preserved verbatim and is attributed to the author. To view a copy of this license, visit: or send a letter to: Creative Commons?559 Nathan Abbott Way?Stanford, California 94305, USA.
ISBN #: 0-9729587-0-3
Published by:?Fox Print Books?137 Emery Street?Portland, ME 04102
[email protected] ?207.775.6860
Some of these poems first appeared in: Poetry East-West, The Maine Sunday Telegram, The Maine Times, Nostoc, Backwoods Broadsides, H.O.M.E., Headcheese, Chants, Backwoods Broadsides Chaplet Series, Café Review, and To Keep You Company.
for w.cat
I had a book of Chinese and Japanese poems that I gave to a friend on the west coast. It was a very small book with a yellow cover, stapled together. No adornments. Just the poems, alive after hundreds of years.
J.M.W.
The Japanese Mason
Without haste, gathering?scrape of the trowel,?slap of cement,?reaching for a block,?setting and tapping it level,?turning with the wheelbarrow,?graceful, sweating,?freed?of every moment.
Kauai
Sweet Hawaii
Even if somebody did steal?my battery, generator, oil cap,?visegrips last night,?I passed the test to be a taxi driver,?and even if I don't have the money?to buy a Charley's Taxi shirt,?congratulations to me.?I'll figure something out.?I'll have coffee in Everybody's Bake Shop;?I'll write Varve and Finn,?tell them I love them,?tell them sweet Hawaii?going to be our new home.
Honolulu
Bus Stop
14, eyes of a deer
in bamboo.
16, heavier, going to school
without her books.
King Street
Honolulu

For Rob
Handsome Rob.?Half the women hate you;?the other half?will give you anything.?Deep in Nam:?your buddy shot, tracheotomy.?"He died happy," you told me,?"he believed I was going to?save him."?Perhaps he knew?he would lie in your arms?forever.
Too Big
Listening to Schubert?while Great-Aunt Hannah?embroiders on the wall,?and darkness closes--?what have we come to??We've gone wrong,?too big?to find our way by song,?light?falling on a face?and handkerchief,?illumination?in the manner?of Rembrandt.
Peter's Answer
Little Blue Heron, young, still white,?by the north causeway bridge--?stick legs, too thin?for the swelling body,?the visual weight of feathers,?stepping slowly in shallow water,?long toes trailing limply, then?extending, three splayed forward,?one back. Brilliant neck?curving, poised. Dagger beak?the same gray as legs and toes.?Why is nature beautiful??The lust for pattern, Peter said.?The heron's head rose and twisted,?circular eye, light brown, orange?rimmed, ancient intelligence?asking a different question.?I was unmoving, not dangerous.?The heron turned to hunt,?brush, a cloud above the river.
New Smyrna Beach,?Florida
Wally's Poem
Dolphins surge up and under.?Mozart's soprano?stitches the heart together.?Washes for a watercolor.
An ant crosses my foot.?Wallace Klitgaard;?Epitome of Splendor--?ants, sun, one's lot.?He typed it himself,?showed it to me on the bus?38 years ago.?He was grinning,?the glad no age?that we become, bent?to making clumsy prayer.
Morning, Maine Honolulu
Early mist breaking?on low tide, mud smell.?Ducks, the small birds,?the rooster down the road?begin to sing the air,?the light, the whole?enormous chance
grateful as the old people?reclaiming Pauahi Street,?seeing each other in doorways?after the night.
I Would
In 1948?I walked all the way?to 14th Street?to buy a bow and arrow.?It was 30 cents; I had 29.
The woman sold it to me anyway?and I was free and happy?on Sixth Avenue?as any Indian.
If I could find her tonight,?I would keep death far away.
For Anita Bartlett,?Too Late
Why cannot blue be enough??Light in the sky, dark in the sea,?the shades between.?The green of fields,?red clover, buttercups.?Bridal white of apple blossoms,?burial earth, hawk's feather, snakeskin.?Monarchs, Anita,?feeding on purple aster,?fluttering up,?sun glowing orange, brown, bronze?through black edged wings, twenty?joining twenty joining a hundred,?down, up, over, from?color to color?to Mexico.
Clouds booming over?the washed woods,?blue sun, Finn eats?chop suey from a pot?while I shave.?Six months to dismantle?the dead rooms of a marriage,?down to a borrowed tent,?patches of snow, and invisibly,?all around us, sap rising?in its own sweet time.
April, Maine
Alexis
Icons, coal mines, Ten Mile Creek,?the Monongahela,?a long way to this house?by the Kennebec,?sitting erect,?brushing your hair,?fire and peace in your cheeks,?preparing for the further?steppes of feeling.
Back In Town
Billy Frailly's got a new shirt,?shaved and walking down the road?ready for anything.?When I was in fifth grade?Billy powered his