Renate Wood

My first poetry teacher, mother of childhood friend Chris Wood, died this week in Boulder. I remember her asking me to hold my hands over my eyes and write down what I saw, to go outside and listen to tiny sounds—dried leaves dancing on warm concrete. I remember her melodious soft voice with its quiet authority, her sadness at missing a mysterious world far away, her long blonde hair and gentle laugh. She was the first person to recognize and call forth my secret world and need to hold on tight to language. In other words, she helped me become who I am.

Feathers

Cleaning my desk today: the two blue jay feathers inside an envelope
I had taken to Germany for my mother before she died—
She didn't remember the jays, which had come to her feeder
in this country. Didn't remember their flash of unearthly blue.
Feathers? She had forgotten what they were for.
What are they for? Like the soul after death, detached from the body
that was their home, they're nothing almost,
so light I barely knew their weight,
flying with me all the way to that hushed bed, and back.

Renate Wood
2/5/1938-3/20/2007