Swan Bones
Bethany Bowman
Swan Bones
Copyright © 2018 Bethany Bowman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-5287-5
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-5288-2
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-5289-9
Cover Art: Kelly Louise Judd. Ten Swans. Pen and watercolor on paper, 2010.
The scripture quotations used in “Ram Offering” are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.” All other scripture verses are taken from the KJV.
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
For Mary Beth Gallogly
Acknowledgments
I would like to express gratitude to the editors of the following publications in which poems in this book first appeared, sometimes in different form.
Apple Valley Review: “Bees,” “Envy”
Art House America: “Candles, Sugar, Rum,” “Dresses,” “Kukicha,” “The Musicians”
Ascent: “Signs”
the Aurorean: “Indiana Breakers”
Blueline: “Advent Ride,” “Casey Road”
The Comstock Review: “Swan Bones”
The Cresset: “Trestle,” “Potpourri”
Kentucky Review: “Water”
The Lascaux Review: “My Parents Jitterbug at Weddings”
Lime Hawk: “Blueberries,” “Early Summer Prayer,” “Hawks”
Midwestern Gothic: “Alleys,” “Flying Cross”
Nimrod International: “Cardinal Moon,” “Gladys with the Stand Up Bass”
The Other Journal: “Wrestler”
Relief Journal: “Baptism,” “Blue Lens,” “Butterfly,” “Communion”
Rock and Sling: “Allegany Prayer,” “Black Caps”
Sapientia: “Ram Offering,” “Wood Sorrel”
The Timberline Review: “Dog at the Bus Stop,” “Tea”
The Tishman Review: “Marble City Breakdown,” “Mohawk Valley,” “The Pinecrest Years”
Windhover: “Slava”
Also, a special thank you to the following individuals who have spent time with these poems over the past few years and given meaningful advice along the way: Daniel Bowman Jr., Emily Whittaker, Amy and Jack Peterson, Julie Moore, Tania Runyan, Jae Newman, Marci Johnson, Hannah Dillon, Kathy and Timothy Dick, Beth Lykling, and Rachel Lake.
Thank you to the following professors for believing in me: Harold Hurley, Judd Decker, and Thom Ward.
Thank you to Orin Domenico for introducing me to Robert Johnson and Barbara Kingsolver, letting me read Blanche Dubois, and giving me the English scholarship even though I wanted to be a nurse. Thank you to the Bookouts for the marching band memories.
Thank you to Kelly Louise Judd for allowing me to use her beautiful illustration for cover art, and to Kelli Allen for my epigraph, a line from her poem “Market Day in Someone Else’s City.”
Finally, thank you to my family: Gail and Paul Whittaker, for unfailing support; Gabe, for country drives and birdwatches; Emily, for being the best of sisters; and Grandma Edith Gallogly, for passing down your love of books and giving me my first volume of poetry. Thank you to Dan, for endless encouragement, edits, and late night snacks, and to Una and Casey for being you. Thank you to my extended family for the gift of music, and to the Mohawk Valley friends who are family too, and always in my heart.
“Some towns are the wing bones we crush in our hands.”
—Kelli Allen
Signs
They know they’ve arrived when they see trees.
Trees mean water, timber, game. They unload the wagon,
eat flapjacks. Pa plays fiddle, phoebes sing.
Much later, our family drives five-hundred miles
from upstate New York to northern Indiana.
Vineyards line the Great Lakes; we don’t stop.
Before long, it’s soybeans and corn and no hills.
Somewhere near Columbus, the kids sample conies
with Cincinnati chili, and I wonder if I wrinkled my nose
the same way when my husband took the job.
Una counts buzzards while our youngest finally naps.
We listen to C. S. Lewis on audio book: The Problem of Pain.
Una’s eyes close, and we discuss the new house,
afraid the wallpaper might be ancient, that the roof,
with its four layers, might not hold off tornado season rain.
We wonder if we’ve made the right decision,
uprooting the kids from their grandparents, the Valley,
to follow a dream that rubs legs and wings together
like locusts in the Midwest, and if there will be a sign
we’ve made the right choice, and if we’ll recognize it
if it hums and snaps at dusk. Pa could read the signs,
but still, some nights, trudged home with a rifle
full of shells, empty pockets, no meat.
We wonder if it’s right to look for signs,
knowing there’s just one, The Sign of Jonas,
and the only way to wake up on a new shore
is to spend three days in the belly of a whale.
But there are signs: A doorbell that chimes Auld Lang Syne,
garden rife with onions, stray cat asleep on the porch.
Inside, the walls are damask, ceilings high,
and the staircase may lead to a magic wardrobe.
Best of all, there’s room for the piano,
which I will teach our children to play
just as my mother taught me, and I will read to them
the books of my childhood, and pray,
in the spirit of Ma, who, miles from anywhere,
washed muslin and calico as though it mattered.
Flying Cross
The silhouette of a Cooper’s Hawk in flight is sometimes described