Bonnie Proudfoot
Household Gods
by Bonnie Proudfoot
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Bonnie Proudfoot has published fiction, essays, reviews, and poetry in a variety of journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her debut novel, Goshen Road, (Swallow Press) was named 2022 WCONA Book of the Year and was long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway. Her first chapbook of poems (Household Gods, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) was released in September 2022. She lives outside of Athens, Ohio. To find out more about Bonnie, check her website: www.bonnieproudfoot.com
Coping with Awe
“You wouldn’t always see it that way, but I just happened to see it with a bite out of it.”
–Georgia O’Keeffe, NY City, 1926
–Georgia O’Keeffe, NY City, 1926
There are moments in the city
when buildings part
to let the light come through.
This can happen, say,
on a winter’s afternoon,
just before sunset, when the sun
slants eastward from the river,
and blazes in the glass and steel.
I can mistake my own direction,
forget where the Shelton Building is,
find myself at the Flatiron instead,
I watch the narrow widen,
the low arc of brilliance rising
a corona that anyone who
dares can wear, sunspots
rising like living orbs.
And then? I hear the men
talk of writing the great American novel,
painting the great American painting,
but they don’t see what I see.
They only use their eyes.
What about ten thousand eyes
staring into ten thousand suns,
each biting away blackness and steel,
the master work of all proud masters,
obliterated. No other way
but to paint it, then, nothing
left to do but leave them
to their squabbles.
The language of the world
is not the same as the language
of the heart. I will never
stop trying to translate it.
I will follow the light.
when buildings part
to let the light come through.
This can happen, say,
on a winter’s afternoon,
just before sunset, when the sun
slants eastward from the river,
and blazes in the glass and steel.
I can mistake my own direction,
forget where the Shelton Building is,
find myself at the Flatiron instead,
I watch the narrow widen,
the low arc of brilliance rising
a corona that anyone who
dares can wear, sunspots
rising like living orbs.
And then? I hear the men
talk of writing the great American novel,
painting the great American painting,
but they don’t see what I see.
They only use their eyes.
What about ten thousand eyes
staring into ten thousand suns,
each biting away blackness and steel,
the master work of all proud masters,
obliterated. No other way
but to paint it, then, nothing
left to do but leave them
to their squabbles.
The language of the world
is not the same as the language
of the heart. I will never
stop trying to translate it.
I will follow the light.
Note: this poem is an ekphrastic poem, written for the painting called The Shelton with Sunspots,
1926, by Georgia O’Keeffe. The italicized sections are quotes from interviews with the artist.
Lost, a list
Sasha, my black and white border collie
with a friend’s Brittany spaniel.
We searched past coyote dens,
flushed grouse, met neighbors in
the next hollow, thought about how
a dog might think, how circles
are better than corners. They returned
together & slept for two days.
Little boy Daniel on a borrowed bike from
the driveway of my brother’s trailer.
We crisscrossed roads where drivers took
curves too quickly, looking for a blonde head
barely higher than handlebars. A blue K-car
pulled up, a man lifted a red bike from
the trunk, & Daniel opened the side door,
said, “I got found.”
“Dain is losing his marbles,” said
my mother-in-law one Sunday afternoon,
from her brown wingchair, a teacup on
her snack table, a minister on tv. From
his La-Z-Boy, Dain nodded agreement, &
I thought about all the marbles I’ve lost,
precious & beautiful, glassy as ancient eyes.
Hold on a minute
In the old neighborhood, between LaGuardia
and JFK airports, no one much noticed the noise
of planes overhead, unless, of course, one of us
was on the phone, and we had to pause, wait until
a passenger jet had passed, two, three seconds,
and then all talk could resume. Plane, we’d say,
to whoever we were speaking to, and that person,
whether a few miles away or in another state,
knew they had to restate what they were saying,
or wait, start speaking again when we could hear
them. This all changed when the Concorde was
allowed to land in New York, imagine a three-hour
flight from London or Paris, celebrities
on every plane, drinking champagne, everyone
flying first class, even though we were awed
that Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger were
coming in for a landing, everyone famous was
shattering the sound barrier with their sonic chic.
The airline promised that flights would arrive
at certain times, and the flight path would
be over the ocean, but we could feel
an undertow of shock waves in the backyard,
it started with a slow growl, like how,
on a mountain hike, the rush of water grows
louder and louder as the path winds toward
a roiling waterfall. Suddenly, deafening.
Then, subsiding. We cupped our hands over
the phone receiver, we had to hold off on thoughts,
it was as if some invisible announcer was saying,
We interrupt this present life to make room for
the future, and it will outshout you, it will arrive
with a thunderous roar, it will render you all silent.
