Clara at Point Reyes, 1895

[vaneramos]

Today's challenge for NaPoWriMo was to write a persona poem, one written in the voice of someone else. I decided to use the fictional voice of my great great grandmother, Clara (Armstrong) Ford (1862-1944). This photograph shows her posing in front of a painting she painted, and which I have in my possession. In the 1890s her husband, a plumber, traveled with Clara and their son to California to install plumbing in a large new hotel being built in San Francisco. I've never visited California myself, but based on photos it's plausible that she painted this at Point Reyes. I also have an abalone shell her son, my great grandfather, collected.

My mother remembered Clara (her great grandmother) as being stern. Perhaps it's easier for me, who never knew her, to fantasize. I guess it wasn't unusual for ladies in the Victorian era to paint, and yet I perceive something enigmatic behind her dour, folded-hand exterior, and I wonder what she was thinking about when she painted this ethereal but somewhat dull painting.

Clara was a grand niece (though I'm uncertain about the number of generations) of Isaac Brock, a British commander who died defending Upper Canada against the U.S. during the War of 1812.



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Clara at Point Reyes, 1895

The arch in the rock looked too easy
an invitation to swimmers and scavengers.
So I’m repainting, heavy brushstrokes
of raw umber drawing the cliff face down,
the way of tears, a field of shadow
closing the gap to make three small piercings
through the massive headland.

They look like choices, a trinity
of paths to the other side: whether to
remain on this California shoreline
letting my son play on the beach every day,
comb the sand, collect abalones,
or when Bill finishes plumbing the hotel
return with him to Ontario.
There’s a third journey I’ve considered
each day surveying the high rock
while I paint.

Now it seems too dark, offends the eyes.
I’ll add a flock of casual white ems.
Limpid gulls, escaping the shadow,
rise with the djinn of mist
so powerful, released from stone,
where wind and water peel away
every soft fallen thing.

All our acquaintances here
know the truth of the arch.
I’m afraid to show my fabrication.
But back in Ontario the family
won’t realize there’s just one portal.

Ken would never tell
won’t remember when he is old
the way I must have seen it
where part of his mother fell
while he played in the sea.

Comments

[stephe.livejournal.com]

Very nice. I love poems with ancestral voices, no matter whether constructed or reproduced.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks, stephe. Here's me reciting a poem a few years ago about my great grandmother, whom I knew and whom married the beachcombing boy in the poem above: Patchwork.

[stephe.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. I think it may be the first time I've heard your voice. A very warm and loving poem.