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[with 3 poems by Catherine Carter]
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Good morning, unseen
John-John was back from college and told Moses that 99 percent of
the matter in the universe is invisible to the human eye. Ever since,
Moses made sure to greet what he could not see.
–“A Good Story,” Sherman Alexie,
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
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Good morning, bacteria
breeding in my coiled gut,
your endless collective of many
the true core of my one. Good
morning, yeasts fermenting
diligently away at all my crevices
and folds, and magnetic field
of gravity which grounds me so close
to this home planet, your pull connecting
the water in this flesh with the drag
of the moon beneath these feet.
Good morning, hairs of fungi
connecting tree to tree and all
earth to all other earth. Good morning,
trails of mouse urine
through the multifarious paths
of grass, which to the vision
of the hovering sparrow hawk glow
ultraviolet, forming arrows
which point the way to the door
of the soft grass-lined burrow.
Good morning, possum crushed
by the roadside, visible but
from which most eyes flick away,
your unseen atoms already
disaggregating to take on fresh
lives as fly larva, carrion beetle, silver
flash beneath the flight pinion
fo the black buzzard, the death-
devourer. Good morning, unmet eyes
of Maria, whose home is this
intersection’s northeast corner;
good morning, ongoing anguish
of the lumbar vertebra fractured
in the stockroom job where she
broke and was fired for breaking;
good morning, urgent grip
of the bowels she must walk
a mile to relieve from this corner
where she stands with her sign
hoping for change that won’t come.
And good morning, unrecorded
conference called in a corner suite,
which even now is about to close
the shelter where tonight she hopes to sleep.
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Catherine Carter
from Good Morning, Unseen, Jacar Press, Durham NC; © 2023
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❦ ❦ ❦
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Not secret. Not hidden. Neither cloaked nor covert, simply not seen. These are the glimpses of my mother’s life I am getting since she died. No tremors from within locked strongboxes, no heart attacks delivered by anonymous post – simply the small bright fragments of her unseen life. The bits not dependent on her being Mom to me.
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I’m paying more attention to the glimpses because I don’t have Mom beside me on the couch any more, although she was never one to draw attention to herself anyway. Here they come, all these versions of my mother through the years, fragmentary visions arriving in photos I’ve glanced at in the past but never really examined. Here she is on her bike, smiling, maybe ten years old; here’s that very same smile again at another age, at every age. What confidence, what honesty! So open. A real person smiling at me.
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Today I’ve found her college annuals – do universities still publish such things? Do people still save them for 75 years? Here’s Mom with the other officers of her Freshman class, 1946, and she the President. I never knew! As a Junior her she is at the centerfold – with a dozen friends – from their listing in Who’s Who in American Universities. The two women beside her remained her friends for life, names even I recall her mentioning. Such a full, rich world Mom inhabited. So many worlds.
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In a few weeks we’ll hold Mom’s memorial service and I’ll no doubt hear even more stories of her unseen life. Already Linda’s youngest sister has told us how she loved Miss Cookie as her Kindergarten teacher. Linda and I were already away at college; the only glimpse I had of Mom’s teaching life was when she brought the gerbils and ducklings home from her classroom for holidays. I wish I’d had the curiosity and imagination to follow her around her world for a few days. But no – she was just our Mom.
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Grief is the empty place beside me on the couch that becomes the empty place inside. I try to fill it with memories, all those moments I’ve known and seen, but they aren’t nearly enough. Where to find more? Show me everything I missed before so I can try harder to open my eyes. Show me every bright fragment. Good morning, Unseen.
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❦ ❦ ❦
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This Stone
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This stone is a particular stone,
mica-flecked lichen-splotched quartz-
veined hunk of granite hunched
by the side of the road where I climb the cove.
It has a history; it has been places.
It knew the molten earth-heart
and the grind of the glacier.
It gouged grooves in the flesh
of this world as gravity dragged it down.
It crushed small plants in its path,
and offered a matrix to lichen,
coolness to soil in the heat of the day,
shelter to mushrooms, midges, mice.
This one particular manifestation
of all that rockness,
created in fire, is still
joining in creation,
participating in being. It has known
billions of mornings; this one
is new. Though it will not answer,
I nod to it as I pass, and, if no one
human is there to hear, I speak:
good morning, you one
rock exactly like no
other. Here we are again,
short life and long one
brushing past each other beside
this road of crushed and broken
stone. Good morning,
spirit of earth, on this one morning
here on earth’s stony flesh.
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Catherine Carter
from Good Morning, Unseen, Jacar Press, Durham NC; © 2023
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❦ ❦ ❦
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Beyond perception as well as beneath notice, these are the unseen in Catherine Carter’s Good Morning, Unseen. The bacteria in our gut upon which our lives and health depend. The homeless woman who might once have thought she could depend on the lives around her. Noticing the ignored and overlooked and essential: Catherine’s piercing images and mind frothing metaphors bring all into stark relief. These poems are revelation.
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How did I miss that? Why am I only now first seeing? Unseen is the dirt that bears me up, unseen is sunlight fusing itself into wood. Glad may be the cat in coyote country but Magic is one man opening the door to one small apartment as refuge. It’s all around us, always has been. The first commandment is “pay attention.” Forgive us for how often we have sinned.
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❦
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Catherine Carter’s Good Morning, Unseen is available from Jacar Press.
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❦ ❦ ❦
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The unseen says
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from the magnolia I wave to you through the wind,
my dark leaves quivering in the glitter of winter
sun, though I knew you would not see.
As the dog I rest my chin on our bed,
tell you it’s safe to wake, as you shudder with the fear
and despair you clutch so close.
Under your feet as the dirt I bear you up;
as the air without which you cannot live
two hundred seconds, I lift your rigs again, again,
seven hundred million times, never wearying
until you do. As the sunlight I fuse myself
into wood, bursting forth again in flame;
as the rain I show you safe passage, falling,
seeping, leaping through my selves the clouds and the sea.
As you breathe, as you drink as you stretch cramped hands
to my electric coil, toast me in the bread, you ask
whether I’m even here, or forget to ask.
Refugee on the long road, back bent
with the treasures you lug, the fears you haul:
lay down the weighted silver, your grandparents;
plate and grief, let home evaporate behind you,
unbind the albatross corpse festering your neck.
Set it all down. Be free of it,
and take my hand in yours. With a second hand,
and a third, I pipe for you now:
just for a moment, dance.
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Catherine Carter
from Good Morning, Unseen, Jacar Press, Durham NC; © 2023
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❦ ❦ ❦
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Thank you for sharing this, Bill–as always, your reads are both close and generous. But even more–for putting this with your memories of your mother. I’ve been thinking about what it means to lose mothers since your recent posts, and I know I don’t even begin to get my head around it; not yet. I am so sorry for your loss, and so grateful for your documentation.
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Thanks — your poetry recharges my batteries. The energy in synergy! Thanks upon thanks. — B
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Wonderful poems. I agree–we need to pay better attention to nature.
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The four tasks of the Naturalist sound astonishingly like the tasks of poets: Pay attention. Ask questions. Make connections. Share. Thanks for your support and your noticing! —B
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Seeing, being inside of creation, paying homage to the mundane, the coarsness of life, the unseen. Maybe I missed the point, but these are powerful lines. Thanks again Bill.
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As in, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of . . .” —B
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Bill, thank you so much for sharing this–but even more for the context of the loss of your mother. As yet, I’ve been fortunate enough to have mine still standing, but I’ve been thinking a bit about what it means to lose our mothers, especially in light of your recent posts. I am so sorry for your loss.
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Thanks, Catherine, for these poems, for deep empathy with this world, and for all your encouragement and inspiration. —B
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my mom loved collecting recipes. She’s been gone since 2001 but for years after I kept finding them stashed in the Brabys house. Leafing through them is a little like finding old poems. Occasionally she’ll write a comment. I have one last shoebox full at home currently. I leaf through it slowly. Loved these poems and your observations.
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Oh yes, finding something in a familiar handwriting! When Linda’s Mom died I photocopied all the recipes she wrote out for us when we got married (first to leave the nest) and shared them with all the sibs. —B
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I always wait for just the right time to sit with your selections, knowing that it may take a while to really “see” them — thank you for sharing these exquisite poems. As the family’s “orphan” of my generation, I often consider the significance of age, but the description of “this stone’s… history… molten earth-heart… the grind of the glacier… participating in being” opens my perspective, connects the temporariness of one human life to the vast unseen universe — the stone, the essence of faith.
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Thanks, Jane. I need to tell myself that “feeling old” is entirely relative. But nevertheless relevant. I’m glad you connect with Catherine’s poems — she is definitely one of my favorites. —B
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Thanks again, Bill, for showcasing excellent poems, and thanks also for the tribute to your mother, who reminds me a lot of my mother. I am a big fan of Catherine Carter and loved seeing her poetry here.
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Richard, thanks always for your presence and your encouragement. —B
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