Bill Frayer is a retired college English professor who lived and wrote at Lakeside for ten years and now lives in Maine. He has had his poems published in The California Quarterly, The Poeming Pigeon, The Main Street Rag, Heydey Magazine, Poetry South, El Ojo del Lago, The Lake Chapala Review, and Magnapoets. He has published five collections of poems.
Mano á Mano
When my father died
early one January morning,
my brother called
with the not-unexpected news
just as I stepped from the shower.
As I sat and drank my tea,
I looked at my hands.
He and I shared
the same wide fingers.
Now I was alone
with our fingers.
I remember watching his fingers
happily holding a brush, mixing paint
in the Maine sunlight
reflecting off the sea.
He squinted at his world
alone, quiet, reflecting,
always dabbing his love
in full color
creating his landscapes,
bringing us all to his palate,
brilliantly illuminating each of us
with his colorful, silent strokes,
as we each emerged,
growing stronger,
on his canvas.
Later, as we all gathered,
I examined my wide fingers
and remembered his gentle touch.
Looking at each face,
I can see his indelible pigment
on each of our souls.
I watch as the young ones come
to kiss his urn with their tears,
and we all know, in this moment,
that we have all been caught
in his splendid painted web.
*****
The Cave
Francisco is my amigo.
He lives in a home with a beautiful garden
and weaves art on his loom.
He has not always lived in such comfort.
He once worked in California picking onions;
he worked as a caretaker for a church in Puerto Vallarta.
But his life fell apart when he heard voices.
He was alone and had no place to live.
So he climbed a mountain near San Juan Cosalá.
He found a cave in an old opal mine.
He looked at the lake and lived alone, in the cave,
for two and a half years.
Finally his father, Teo and his companion, Janice,
brought him to live in their home
and gave him medicine and a new loom.
He healed and he was happy.
One day when I walked to his house
to help him with his English.
But he said “No, today teacher
I take you into the mountain
where I used to live, please come.”
He had not been back for eight years,
so the paths were overgrown with brush.
Now I am old and the climb was hard,
but his eyes were desperate, so I
did not give up. We climbed together
and our hearts were beating hard together
and our arms were bleeding from the brush.
When we reached the cave he joked,
“Come see my living room, teacher.”
The rotten mattress was still there.
He wanted me to take his photo.
He found his old sombrero
which he had painted with red birds.
“Sit on my mirador.” We sat
in front of the cave and ate bred
and looked down at the silver lake.
*****
Camp
Think of the old musty camp
long-settled, sitting askew
by the clear lake ensconced in birch and pine
the long table covered with red checked oilcloth
the benches stained with lobster butter
where families sit, holding fast to memories
which did not exactly happen as retold
but create the tapestries daughters and sons
need to pass on to their daughters and sons
to explain why they need to return to this space
and to lie on the dock together and look at the stars
the same stars they see from Maine and Indiana and California
as the same blood courses through their veins
as the stream leads into the lily pads
where the blue heron sits waiting
like a sage who knows what it all means
without explanation.
*****
Helga
He drew her into his blue-eyed gaze
with careful strokes and warming hues.
She held her pose in nakedness,
for fourteen years a deeper bond ensued.
To him she brought a perfect bloom,
innocence, that unmade bed,
always chaste, he claimed, but then
who would know? Ask her instead.
A master with skillful hand—
was she grateful for the chance
to show her silent love to him?
A pure or sensual romance?
We now can only search for clues,
the genius and his secret muse.
*****
Duet in Counterpoint
Together sixty-three years.
He couldn’t hear much;
she couldn’t see much.
yet together they danced.
Cooking was a skirmish.
She shouted instructions.
He understood the gist,
sometimes improvising,
always cheerful, nodding his head.
Mornings she listened to NPR,
annoyed when he asked
what she wanted for breakfast.
I’ll have eggs. Now quiet!
I can’t hear the news when you talk.
What? Did you say eggs?
Would you like toast with that?
Quiet. I’m listening.
With marmalade?
He prepared her afternoon Stoli
and picked flowers for her
to arrange her way.
The stories she told us
made him smile
pretending to hear.
*****
Louis Armstrong and the Mexican Goats
I am sure they never heard
of the great jazz man, yet…
the day I saw the old goats
jump the concrete barricade
and across the road,
I was listening to
Satchmo, loudly, in my car,
and as they pranced
I put down the window
to let the clear trumpet notes
cascade into the dust.
Those hairy beasts paused
at the rich staccato
then, tentative,
merged their steps
and picked up the beat,
just then,
for a moment,
reaching back
to New Orleans.
Astonished,
I watched
my new friends
in seeming
synchronicity across
an unlikely gulf
of time and space.
Louis Armstrong
and his Hot Fives
sending their beat
into the ether
to those yet unborn
Mexican goats.
*****
Not Natural
It is not natural
to worry about our child
being a victim of hate.
It was 1998.
To worry about our child
who just told us she was gay.
It was 1998;
Matthew Shepard had been left to die.
She’d just told us she was gay,
but who could imagine?
Matthew Shepard had been left to die.
What would happen now?
Who could imagine?
How does rage begin?
What would happen now?
her edgy haircut, tattooed arms.
Where does rage begin?
I could not sleep at night,
her edgy haircut, tattooed arms.
She was just in love.
I could not sleep at night
while she danced all night in gay bars,
She was just in love.
I, helpless to protect.
She danced all night in gay bars,
not yet a victim of hate.
I, helpless to protect.
This was not natural.
*****
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