In the Summer of Moths

For Alice Woolf (June 18, 1916 – June 3, 1997)

Yours were the hands, purple and knotted

striking the keys to make music from memory.

Yours was the voice weaving memory and myth,

croaking the stories we craned our ears to hear,

ready to laugh with you, Alice.
 

Eighty years of life you aimed to conquer—

Frontier girl, long-jumper, rule-breaker,

horse-breaker, bone-breaker –

Fast as a hummingbird, silvery

as your weight of turquoise jewelry

until the weight of pain would slow you down,

you never missed a trick, Alice.
 

Nearly Christmas eve you missed a step,

body and soul plunged down the dark stairwell,

breaking almost every bone but not your spirit, Alice.

Through the narrow rabbithole emerging,

pinned like an insect to the hospital bed –

Stubborn butterfly, you willed

your promised freedom from the white cocoon.
 

Crucified woman, cast

in a halo crown of thorns

who freed a hand to tear the tubes

from your own throat while your guardians slept—
 

You would breathe, and you would arise.
 

Trusted healing hands would hold back death

till it be merciful, and swift.

No thunderclaps or lightning, on an ordinary day

you stopped the world.
 

Did you dream of riding bareback through the aspen,

racing to the ridgetop of the ranch,

ageless matriarch of wonderland?
 

Sky-wide your heart, yet could not hold you longer,

June-Bug Alice, this summer of moths,

you were drawn to the light.
 
 

(Alice B. Woolf, 80, passed away on June 3, 1997.

She was a teacher, artist, musician and rancher

who lived in the Cuba, New Mexico area for 45 years.)

Copyright Linda Weissinger Lupowitz 1997