Memorial: Blanche Chaiken
(March 10, 1922 - January 19, 2003)
by Ellen Halter
You found me
on the near side of childhood.
Your brow,
arched like a spade,
plunged through topsoil
to the secret garden
of my heart,
trillium running through it.
Your retinue
of nine-year olds,
sailed with you
after school,
through the projects,
its mean grid
of concrete and brick,
to the library.
Port of entry,
its bay and lagoon,
underwater dives,
we'd surfaced
late afternoon,
the sun in our eyes.
Out-of-focus,
blurred,
memory
I believe.
Ramrod as a mast,
regal as a queen,
you trod abroad,
toeing outward
away from me.
You, my dear,
interred,
bones to dust,
I can’t conceive.
Dumb to the love of the child,
deaf to the poet’s pleas,
To please,
please,
heed.
You there,
deferred,
a mirage,
I retrieve.
My shoulders squared,
my eyebrows raised,
readied to proceed.