RUTH Z. DEMING - POEMS

​Ruth Z. Deming, winner of a Leeway Grant for Women Artists, has had her work published in lit mags including Hektoen International, Creative Nonfiction, Haggard and Halloo, and Literary Yard. A psychotherapist and mental health advocate, she runs New Directions Support Group for people with depression, bipolar disorder, and their loved ones. Viewwww.newdirectionssupport.org. She runs a weekly writers' group in the comfy home of one of our talented writers. She lives in Willow Grove, a suburb of Philadelphia. Her blog is www.ruthzdeming.blogspot.com.  

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​                              MERCY AND THE BEAR    
 
(Inspired in the summer when several brown bears were sighted far from their forest homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey)   
 
Zing! The first missile came
from the tree
her tree where she feasted
that day on
sweet clover honey as bees
swarmed over her thick
black pelt
she leaned back
and with her long blue tongue
squashed and ate them
feeling the tickle in her throat
then rearing, on hind legs,
she howled for joy at the sweetness
of the taste and the air and a
brief memory that life was fine
her suckling cubs went deep into the forest
on their own
her mammaries no longer pained
 
But what was this?
Not those men again
quiet, hidden under green brush
and dead leaves
she’d been searching for breakfast
a spotted fawn
as it trotted tail up
after mother
when
Zing! that sound
that sound that meant
run, hide, strike
claws out
claws that a while ago
yesterday, really, had
found a nest of young
badgers unprotected
their fur tickled her throat
their blood hotter than
the sun as it ran down her
throat and underbelly
 
Zing! As she runs
through the pine trees
faster and faster
she trips
falls on front legs
rolls over
sees blood
her blood
roars with
something worse
than bees
that sound – the missiles –
brings pain excruciating
she limps away
faster and faster
 
More zings fly past her
she sees them
faster than winged flies she
has licked from her fur,
blind with fury
and agony
she lays down and
unfurls her tongue
to assuage the burning
the endless sting
of the flying missile
now part of her shoulder
 
Next morning
the pain lessens
Flee the forest
her ancient memory
tells her
she crosses a highway
hot to the touch of her
naked claws
that make her lope
across this hardened
river
so different from
her forest floor.
 
Dwellings she sees,
a building with balconies
women with white hair
and hunched-over bodies
sit together in white chairs
on the green grass
she moseys up to the one
whose hair is in a bun atop
her thin pained face
the bear gives a soft moan
and quicker than an evaporating
rainbow licks a sandwich
of white bread
mayonnaise and ham
from her lap
and from another
a honeysweet
cupcake with delicate
white paper
then stands with her blue tongue
outstretched
streaked with saliva
and icing
as the ladies gape
then rears back on her
rear legs and roars
with contentment
 
The ladies sit still,
paralyzed,
she smells their fear
like rotting flesh before the
vultures come  
she will stay a moment
feeling the pleasure of
the smell she instilled
arching her head
in the air
to sniff and roar
then ambles away
toward home.
 
 
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           WE ARE NOT IMMORTAL LIKE THE CATHOLICS
 
Dear one,
yellow, though you are,
you peel
revealing rotting wood
I have come to like it here
a high-ceilinged living room
reminding me of snow-covered forests
in Switzerland
a kitchen where light floods in –
am I outside in the backyard
with the songbirds and crows? –
and an upstairs office
where my boy once slept
now catching the curl of winds
that rough up the house
and find their way inside
to chill my feet
 
I like it here and want to stay.
My borrowed body says
something else
aging sans mercy
until the world is
through with me
 
Who will buy my house?
The for-sale sign swings
with the wind
turns hot in the summer
and one day
they will fall in love
with the house
kick down the sign
and watch the daffodils
come up in spring
with the breath of
their former owner
a-hover
a-hover.
 
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 HAPPY SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY TO THE MAN IN THE OTHER ROOM


I hear him snoring in his favorite chair
my husband, the professor, with
his long snowy-white beard

We met at a pub in
Philadelphia, each sipping a
beer. He took my hand
and said, "O nameless woman
I aim to marry thee. Dreamt
about you only yesterday, in your
pink and purple scarf that frames
your cheerful face just so."

Sixty years went by.
Children, grandchildren
Book shelves filled with
books lined up from A to Z.
Julie Child cookbooks,
bios of presidents,
my slender volumes of poetry
his four tomes of ancient
history

Never dreaming that we too
would get ancient, memories
dim as fading stars at twilight.

I hear him awake from the
next room, fumbles around,
then, "Darling Mary! I've
bought you a Valentine gift."

Stutz Candy? The
Whitman Sampler? But, no,
this man of mine, wearing
his polka-dot pajamas, shuffles
into the living room bearing
a box of Girl Scout Cookies,
Thin Mints, we will share over
a glass of wine.
 
                                                                    T H E   E N D