---

An Englishwoman At the Stone Circle
Rush Ranch, California 2004

Sisters across a stone circle. 
This is the center of the world.

Around us, grasses flow 
in silken currents toward the hills,

a glossy green river
 rippling across the plain.

The baked rock is a Dali painting
 a moonscape cratered and pockmarked

where stone pounded stone. Weary shoulders stooped,
 other women lingered here - how long ago? -

made marks, ground acorns, nursed babies,
 flew East with the grass green wind.

My words inadequate  for this holy place.
 Time only a concept, 

measured in grass color, calf birthing, 
the arrival of migrant hawks,

or sudden exclamations of lupins
 on the flanks of tender hills.

The spirits are at peace here.  They sing 
with the redwing blackbirds

in the sighing eucalyptus, or wait
 with the barn owls for dusk’s return.

The stones talk of women who came to grind,
 of her history, not mine.

Unless I look beneath, to where my soul whispers,
strung in my brittle bone cage.

It calls me Woman.

 Bearer of burdens, keeper of the fire.
Memory’s maiden. Spellbinder.

The stones talk. They tell me
that after all  I belong. 

---

 IF THIS WERE MY LAST DAY

If this were my last day 
I would let the cat sit on my lap right now, as I type.

If this were my last day
I would forego sleep to write this poem.

I would step outside this morning without shoes,
to watch the sun rise over Mount Diablo

I would walk the dog before taking my coffee,
spend an extra languid hour by the lake

If this were my last day
I would wear something frivolous to the garden,

loll in the hammock in satin or silk,
reciting my poems to the birds, or to the pastel dawn.

If this were my last day
I would reel all my grudges in like fish,

take the hooks out, and let them free,
so I could call those who hurt me and love them anyway.

I would surprise myself with tenderness for my enemies,
sip jasmine tea and eat desert twice,

look in the eyes of everyone I meet,
let them know, out loud, or in silence,

that they matter, and are loved.
I would be an ambassador of peace in my world.

If this were my last day
I would play before my bed was made, and make a happy mess

in the kitchen, baking complicated cookies from scratch,
naked except for an starched apron.

If this were my last day, looking back or forward 
would make no difference. And I would be at peace with that.

If this were my last day, my children would know
that I am ready, and they would release me with joy

I would not slip softly into the dark river,
But shoot like a rainbow tailed comet into oblivion.

---

Return of the National Guard   
 (after watching the news of the return to Fort Bragg)
 

All the weary gardeners, salesclerks, laborers, insurance adjusters,
 plucked from their separate days 
  of grocery lists and new shoes for the kids
to nightmare and back,
 pile out of the cold belly of a flying whale,
 flinch at the sound of a backfire
 or the sudden swoop of a black bird,
blink at familiar light of a softer dawn,
 drink air crystallized by the absence of sand.

 Twenty hour journey across an ocean
 across a chasm, across time,
from desert grit to a soft bed and a waiting body,
 silken, timid, familiar, alien.

 She will watch his night sweats
 and wait for his return. 

---

SLEEPWALKER   

I am putting one foot in front of the other.
My world is tilting,
my eyes not quite focused, gait unsteady.
Excuse me if I stutter or bump into you.

Do you feel the world tilting
under all this hatred and blood?
Excuse me if I stutter or bump into you,
I am doing the best I can.

Written before all this hatred and blood,
prophesies I don’t believe
(though I do the best I can)
seem, anyhow, to be coming true. 

Prophesies? I don’t believe
fate has us in a choke hold,
yet my nightmares seem to be coming true.
The alarm is sounding while I sleep. 

Fate has me in a choke hold.
My eyes unfocused, gait unsteady,
with all alarms sounding, I walk asleep,
putting one foot in front of the other.

---

The nature of Tigers
On the attack at SF Zoo, Christmas Day and the assassination 
of Benazir Bhutto, December 27th. 

On Christmas Day a tiger died
Because she was a tiger.
A young man dared her 
to be a tiger.
She took the dare.
They shot her.

Today, another tiger died.
She could have stayed in exile
but she returned
to be a tiger. 
She took the dare.
They shot her

Maria Rosales was born in London, and lived in Europe, North Africa, Canada, and Hawaii before settling in California. Her poems have appeared in Byline, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Poetalk, and the Nashville Newsletter, as well as several Anthologies. 

Before the heat rises behind the mountain
birds give song to the blue morning.

The Nile is at peace.
The burden of all these hungry mouths
does not ripple her skin.

A new tribe is here
setting up tents
and telescopes
watching the heavens for signs.

A woman sits at home in her body,
alone in a throng. 
Conversation 
evaporates around her
into the heating air.
She is collecting
moments
tucking them behind her ribs
next to the heart.

Morning melts into the yellow Nile,
air jumps with anticipation.
Ra and Isis prepare to join.

Thank you for calling God.
 
Due to increased call volume
we have installed a new prayer response program.
Please listen carefully
as our menu has changed.

In order to direct your prayer, 
please press the appropriate God version number
(Please note, calls to the Virgin Mary are not handled on this line)

For Yahweh, press 1
For Jehovah, press 2
For Allah, press 3
For Jesus, Son of God, press 4
If you cannot pronounce the name or are forbidden to mention it, press 5
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If you have called this number in vain please disconnect.

If this is an emergency prayer,
please hang up and call directly into the sky
with both arms outstretched in supplication.

Your prayer may be answered in the order received. 

We are equal opportunity God. 

I told you about the rooster.

How
he threw his wings over his 
hens,
his talons up at me,
clicking in space like
spiked castanets.

How
his heroic stand
held me in awe for
so long, and yet,
how
I killed him anyway.

All the hens.
Anyway.

Because that’s
what we 
were there 
to do.

Will it be like the dentist mask
horror of early childhood,
descending toward my widening eyes,
black rubber stench 
the futile gasp for the last fresh
untainted lungful?

Or like falling asleep
trying to stay conscious of the exact moment
that sleep comes,
the way we sisters did,
lined up in our shared bed
head to toe to head
stiff as clothespins,
so as not to disturb the one heavy blanket
draped over three bodies.

We slowed our breathing down 
together
until
we were one nubile animal
waiting for oblivion,
counting breaths 
until we floated away.

Will it be
the smothering mask 
alone?
or
will my sisters 
sit or lay with me
hold my clammy fingers
share my blanket 
as I enter the long night?

I know I want to be awake
for the last sweet inhalation.
I want to taste it
the way the mouth records
a scent – the tongue and nose
useless without each other,
taking credit 
for each other’s effort,
like sisters. 

It’s not something I ever catch
in the act.
Unannounced,
unheralded – just, there it is.

After I walk back from picking up
the newspaper, still in my robe,
heavy-footed since the alarm launched
me out from the blankets
toward the waiting world of business
and breaking news; 
before I start back to the kitchen table 
where I’ll read what the weather was outside,
how many roadside bombs today. 

This morning, otherwise the
same as all the others, 
before the sun begins its climb
onto the sleepy shoulders
of Mount Diablo,
the highway only a distant murmur,
stockmarket open in New York
for only an hour,
California coffee still gurgling as it brews,

there it is, draping the arch over the gate,
breathing white perfume into the day,
as it does every year.

Sneaks up in the night,
explodes all at once
as sudden and fantastic as hope.