Spanish Moss Books
HomeUpright Piano
Lady with a Metal Detector
Poems by Rebecca Hassett
Lady with a metal detector
Back again today
I see her like I saw her yesterday
Looking in the same spot on the windy beach
For an earring or a wedding ring
I am feeling grand on this hotel balcony
Overlooking the beach
I am sure she is staying here too
Or not
Maybe there is some other story
Sure we're all looking for something with a metal detector on the beach
Where is the beach?
What are you looking for?
I hope, just like me, that she finds it
Sifting now, without the metal detector, but just with her hands.
Up and Down the Elevator
Up and down the elevator
People are so nice to each other
At this hotel on the beach
Blessing each other in and out
Of the elevator doors
On the way to the beach,
Or the town, or the hotel room
Packing up with sloppy suitcases to go home
Or newly arriving with neatly packed suitcases in hand
Or on the luggage carts
That the kids treat like a magic carpet ride!
I wish we could always be this nice to each other,
Like at this hotel on the beach
My daughter says the same thing
Trying to remember this,
As we pack up for the car ride home.
Hummingbird Outside Of My Window
Hummingbird outside of my window is a sign of joy
Humming with her wings on the white and pink flower
On the flowering bush that stares in my window
She was planted by the people who lived here before
We just try to keep the weeds away
The window is smudged with dog noses
And some of the blinds are broken by dog's teeth
I need to clean the window
I want some new blinds
But the hummingbird outside of my bedroom window doesn't mind
She's there for the flower on the plant
And the plant is there for her, too.
Words, Words, Words
A hawk on a hay bale
Watching my dogs from the field on the Farm
Next to the house where we live
The dogs didn’t run after the deer onto the field that day
They stayed by the house
I long for this unspoken communication between animals
No words, words, words
Just one look from the hawk
And my dogs knew where
To stay
When my hawk flew away,
She found another hay bale
To watch the field from
To hunt
When we walked out on the field again,
I let my dogs off leash
They ran ahead but always
Looking back at me
This is why I became a writer
To explain these unspoken communications to myself
To remember them, like moments of peace
Because I don’t love words, words, words
I like the moments that take longer to describe
You always had to be there
To remember
So I use words, words, words
For moments when I was alone with my mind
With my dogs, my hawk and the field.
A Bucket
Had a dream about Alice Walker telling me,
Let the rain fall in the buckets,
Watch it fall...
In the dream, I was watching a stained glass ceiling in an old house,
With cracks in the ceiling
The rain fell in long lines through the cracks in the ceiling
There were buckets all along the floor
I had anxiety about the ceiling, the buckets and the rain
Alice Walker was calmly there with me
She said, Let the rain fall in the buckets. Watch it fall.
Later, I tried to make a drawing of this scene in my dream
But I am not a drawer, I am a writer after all...
