MARGARET VAN EVERY resided in Ajijic from 2007-2022, during which time she was an active member of the writing community. She frequently published poetry, essays, and short fiction in the Ojo del Lago and was a charter member of The Not Yet Dead Poets’ Society in which she is still active online though living in Florida. While in Ajijic she was introduced by James Tipton to tanka, the 5-line, 31-syllable poem form originating in 9th-Century Japan. Though she also writes traditional poetry, the tanka form became her specialty. In Mexico she published three books of her own poetry: A Pillow Stuffed with Diamonds (2010); Saying Her Name (2011), and Holding Hands with a Stranger (2014). In 2018 she also published James Tipton’s last book, The Alphabet of Longing. These are all available on Amazon or locally at Diane Pearl’s. Margaret also contributed to three Ajijic anthologies: All Our Words Needed Saying (2015); Romancing the Muse (2017); and What Remains (2020), as well as the forthcoming Bravados, edited by Janice Kimball.
Margaret is currently writing a book of both traditional poems and tanka on the topic of death and dying. The following tanka are a few examples of what’s to be included in the book, which so far has no title.
despite their efforts
to make them scared of hell
the church can never win:
Mexicans fear life more than death
embrace the skeleton
this fecund population
is bound to the church
not by promise
of eternal life, but love
of the virgins here and now
día de los muertos
in this ancient village
the bones are brought to light
scrubbed with remembrance
returned to earth another year
we did not know
all our words
needed saying
that day we stopped by
to just say hello
I used to think
promiscuity
had something to do with promise;
now I know
it’s all about mortality
arm in arm
in stride with
the faceless figure
whose name
I’ve tried to forget
the church gardener
turns up teeth in the compost
feeding the flowers—
a congregant’s final gesture
to give back, pay forward
out of the wood urn
into arms of the beach breeze
fly his last remains
at home with sand, air, water—
with some smeared on her tearful face
*****
A Pointillist Paints a Heart
daubs pigment
with precision,
dares the edge to spill,
blur, bleed,
fights the emergent form.
Still from the chaos
a redness triumphs,
stokes the thing
to fire and thump!
This heart’s alive,
each point a nerve bared.
Stand back and sense prevails;
close up witness the clamor
of insistent shards.
*****
An Old Man Contemplates His Frailty
Joe, an octogenarian from Pottawatomie County,
preparing his wardrobe for a cruise to that part
of the Mediterranean from the port of Rome
to the ruins of Troy, takes stock of his closet
where hang the clothes of a stranger—someone
robust and tall, upright in carriage, someone
he once knew who could chop a cord of wood
and carry the heavy groceries in. He tries on
the blazer with the real brass buttons. His favorite
dress-up jacket, trousers and shirts, once elegant
attire, are now costume for a clown. Will some
oracle disclose where flesh goes when it leaves
the man behind with nothing but a third leg
for balance, backbone torqued into a halting
question mark?
*****
Diplomacy
In some countries
you must offer three times
because courtesy requires
that one decline twice
before accepting what one
wanted all along,
lest one look greedy or needy.
In some countries
you must never decline
or you shall be thought an ingrate
scorning your host’s beneficence,
which you neither need nor want
but must pretend is the epitome
of your heart’s desire.
In some countries,
just because they’re there,
you must offer even though
you can’t afford to
and you detest the bastards.
In some countries
you must offer and they
must say yes, though neither
the offer nor the acceptance
is sincere, and all are relieved
with the comfort of the lie.
Darling, when we lie with one another,
in which country are we?
*****
Legacy
They’ll trash the mountain of photos it took us
a lifetime to raise as bulwark against memories’
erosion, ours and theirs. They won’t recognize
our faces or our names, and it’s less likely they’ll
love us or thank us for the DNA, but they’ll have
proof in albums we were here—and everywhere
else while here, checking off the wonders, ancient,
modern, and natural, shutter-alert and smiling
from crib to grave. Time was when a lock of hair,
a letter from the Front, a square of handiwork
summed up a soul. Those who come will trash
this heap of ours while theirs, taken by phone
and stored in a Cloud, may wander forever
lost in digital oblivion.
*****
Lot’s Wife
Lot’s wife looked back
not to see Sodom in flames,
but what had become of her home,
that place where she’d tended
the hearth, shuttled the loom,
planted the everyday
seeds of expectation.
Before the expulsion,
Lot’s wife had a name
and face, a beating heart.
For over-yearning
she was struck dumb,
made one of many
salt pillars in the desert,
a warning to those who’d look back
not to shed tears for what was
and never more will be
or they too will be frozen in time.
*****
Elimination Dance
in memory of Jim Tipton
the curandero
feeds him
rattlesnake rattles
to cure what ails him—
in his pocket a ticket to Tijuana
invited on the trip
three Fates
all 30 years his junior—
his wife, the maid,
one lover
Death now transgendered
a temptress
in stilettos
and miniskirt—
same ol’ Jim
he knows his name
is on her dance card—
she’ll soon appear
to collect the promised
pasodoble
*****
Last Words
Crossing the threshold into memory care
you had three words, and eight months
later lost a third of those. The brain had
let all others go. You, whose store of words
seemed inexhaustible, how do you get by
with two? Is your world a foreign flick
without subtitles? Are you like an animal
who understands the gist but can’t reply?
I see you as a neonate, no mother’s milk
for wisdom or comfort and no words writable
on your blank slate. Perhaps you have
no memory of what’s been lost and thus
can be content with what remains (those two)
and grateful for the one that lies ahead.
*****
- Feria Maestros del Arte – 2024 - November 1, 2024
- November 2024 – Issue - October 31, 2024
- November 2024 – Articles - October 31, 2024
A wonderful collection!