Three poems by Babs GordonOrange Blossoms

Two FuneralsForgotten Words

A Sunday Kind Of Loveby Richard Jacob

Two poems by Marjory Bong-Ray LiuThe Music Of Silence

Water Spout

Babs Gordon is retired from the English Department. She writes poemswhen the mood strikes her.

Richard (Dick) Jacob was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and re-ceived his BS and PhD degrees in Physics from the University ofUtah. He joined the faculty at Arizona State in 1963 and retiredas Professor Emeritus in 2001.

Marjory Bong-Ray Liu was born and lived in China. She es-caped from Shanghai to free China during WW II. In 1945 shetaught music at Fukien Christian University and her article (ap-pearing here in the second issue, April 2008) relates her colorfulexperiences there. Her two poems were composed in 1980 whenshe was on sabbatical leave from ASU in China. She writes thather poetry “tries to express an awakening of consciousness to theinner-outer, or yin-yang, sounds of silence.”

[more contributors’ notes follow]

Dick Jacob writes that during his tenure, he served a five-yearterm as Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Hewas also Director of the College of Liberal Arts and SciencesHonors Program, 1976 – 1978, and served a term as president ofthe independent Faculty Association. He was also the first presi-dent of the University Club Board of Directors. In 2004, he be-came Founding Dean of the Emeritus College at ASU. Dick hastaught physics at all levels and in most areas, emphasizing quan-tum physics, relativity, electrodynamics and mathematical phys-ics. His research is in theoretical elementary particle physics. Hisavocational interests are in music – he plays saxophone andclarinet – history and historical fiction, baseball, and writing. Heand his wife, Jackie (née Snell) have four children, all of whomhave ASU degrees, and twelve grandchildren. Jackie is a retiredelementary school teacher. They continue to reside in Tempe,where the proximity to Sky Harbor brings family closer.

Marjory Liu writes that she was the first native-born femaleChinese in the US to receive degrees in both Music Therapy (BSAlverno College) and Ethnomusicology (PhD UCLA). She alsospecialized in Asian Philosophies and Aesthetics and pioneeredin the teaching of Chinese in the LA Public Schools in 1963. Herarticles have been published in China, Germany, and the US. Hertwelve-year research project of written entries on Chinese Tao-ism were all included in the six-volume encyclopedia of worldbelief systems, A Treasury Of Mystic Terms (New Delhi, 2003).She lives in Fountain Valley, California, and is currently writingher autobiography as a legacy to her four children.

TWO FUNERALS

Two funerals in one dayA sunny Sunday,A family dayTwo friends gone,One old, the other not so young.

Two funerals—same placeSame crowd, mostly,Dim sum in-between.

Two eulogies,Long,“Tedious,” some said.Yet how to sum up a lifetime in short moments?

And when it’s over, friends go their separate ways.You and I talk in the car.

“I want music at my funeral” you say.“Me, too” I say.We return home to do,What?I to clean the dead leaves from the fish-tail palm,You to the TV.

The Cardinals lose again.

Mundane things, yetIt helps us think,To remember,Friends.I grieve for themAnd think of me.Why can’t the good live on forever?And who are the good?Who’s to decide?

THREE POEMSBABS GORDON

ORANGE BLOSSOMS

A brief encounter,A message on the windBegins the chain of improbable memories.A puff, a fragrance of something familiar, sweet and heavy, edible,Floating in the air, blocking any other presence;The overwhelming sense of smell will not be denied,And electricity sizzles betweenThe neurons—energyReaching down into the darkness of long forgotten momentsSearching for memories that are cherished by the brain,Holding them through time,RemembrancesOf orange blossoms and you.

The wind moves hard among the treesLaden with white,Blossoms swinging,Fluttering to earth and crushed beneath the feet of passersby.Pluck one from the tree and hold it;Bury your nose among the branches overpowering with pungencyAnd the promise of coming fruit.

Tuck away the fragrance in your reminiscences;I hold them through time,ThoseOrange blossoms and you.

I finish the fishtail palmAnd start to wash the aloe,My fingers nicked and bleeding.It is good, I think.A sacrifice—to friends

FORGOTTEN WORDS

Drifting away like the petals from a drying flowerBending to the wind,Imperceptibly at first until we finally notice that the stem is bare.They go, during the night, one at a time, slipping away as if not

needed.And—in time—they goIn the dayWhen they are needed even more.

So easy to describe the things that elude us:The shape, the size, the color, sometimes even the smell.But they’re gone. The words.

That small, that vicious bug . . . . .You know, the one that can be poisonous that has the curled up tail

that looks like a lobster;it’s brown and it stings—

Is crawling on the bedroom floor; I need help because I cannotcrush it.

I cannot name it.What is it called? Help!

Our friends, you know, the ones who lived near us on SixthAvenue; you remember, he owned

The Ford agency?That’s their new house. . . .O! What’s their name?And Jack; he’s dead now; didn’t he own a new Mustang?

We, who lose words are a club of kind, yet no camaraderieExists among us,Isolated by the losses, each one unique and self-identified.In our frustration we watch and hope that nothing else will float

away;Please let it only be the words.Not sense, nor manner, nor action, nor recognition of you,That desiccate to finally wisp away, drifting, wafting, swaying

with the windsInto nothing.

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R. J. JacobOctober, 2006

A Sunday Kind ofLoveTo Jackie

I want a Sunday kind of love ...The sun’s rays stream in through the patio screen, carrying the sounds offrolicking mockingbirds and the sweet smell of orange blossoms. Coversand pillows are strewn on the floor and the sheets, rumpled from earlier,have been appropriated by a large orange cat applying his vocation ofsleeping throughout the day among familiar odors. The radio is playing aBorodin string quartet, and I hum along with the Broadway lyrics,“Dawn’s promising skies, petals on a pool drifting; imagine these in onepair of eyes, and this is my beloved.”

A love to last past Saturday night ...Ticket stubs and programs lie on the dining room table next to a smallblack purse. The newspaper is scattered on the sofa and the comics setthoughtfully aside for their only reader in this household. The crosswordis on the clipboard. It appears on first glance to be impenetrable, but willbe deciphered before church. The smell of bacon makes its appearanceand eggs can be heard cracking on the way to an omelette. A crock pothas started itself before sunrise and the aroma of a steeping roast is alsospreading. There are just the two of us today, but Sunday dinner will asusual be elegant.

I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight ...A birthday card on the book shelf reminds me that we both are now pastseventy. And my e-mail shows only impersonal concern about myportfolio and virility; it is quickly vanquished into the electronicnevernever. The phone will soon start singing, bringing reports fromgrandchildren of their challenges, exploits and heart-throbs. A dustcovered saxophone stands expectantly in the corner and is consoled with“Maybe tonight.” The teal dressing gown glides through the study doorand lips, pink and full, reach down to kiss me and say, “I love you.”

A love for all my life to have and to hold ...The toast is buttered, the chocolate hot and the omelet a gift fromheaven, prepared by my guardian angel. Smiles, familiar through half acentury, greet each other across the table; the conversation flits from lastnight’s theater to tomorrow’s obligations to the beautiful spring weatherto a son-in-law’s new employment. And eyes exchange volumes ofreaffirmation.

To keep me warm when Mondays are cold ...The bed is made, the puzzle conquered and Sabbath finery donned.Vegetables have been sliced and added to the crock pot, the editorialsread and sagely commented upon. A quick check for showing slip andopen fly, a final straightening of a tie, giving a chance for a quickkiss...careful of the lipstick..., and another elderly couple make theirentrance to the world, who will never quite understand that they are,really, very young.

Ours is a Sunday kind of love.

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“I Want A Sunday Kind Of Love” Words and music by Barbara Belle, LouisPrima, Anita Leonard and Stan Rhodes © Copyright 1946, 1972, 1990 by MCAMUSIC PUBLISHING, A division of MCA, Inc.

THE MUSIC OF SILENCEMarjory Bong-Ray Liu

Silence —The expectation of sound,The pause that vitalizes,The void that’s true potentiality;A building block in space,A pregnant interval in time;A whiteness that interacts

with the color of our lives,Bounded by tones yet unto itself,Incomprehensible except without parameters,Existing yet unobtrusive;Except to the outer ear

conditioned only to sound,Silence becomes then a fearsome gap, a tense stop,Rather than the underpinning of all music,Without which there is no beauty nor form.

Oh—We one-dimensional peopleAttuned only to the outer ear.Do we not hear the ringing sounds of silence,The harmonies of other senses,The rhythmic pulse of non-sound?Do we not see with the mind,And feel with the heart,And taste with our ears,And touch with our eyes?Then reach out to silence,Let it embrace our whole being,Wash us of gross trivialities,And leave our senses aware that we dwell

in an infinite continuum of non-sound,Only interspersed with sound.

So—Silence is the real picture,And sound mere background

on the canvas of our selves.For music is nothing without silence…That which lends distance between each note…Yet silence itself can exist alone,Tuned to each living cell frequency.Infused with its own rhythmic vibration,It’s the inner music which orchestrates

the sounds of silence.Thus, silence is truly dynamic—

Not the absence of life,But its very core;Not the still nothingness of death,But the path to a wide open door!

WATER SPOUT (A CHILD’S VIEW)Marjory Bong-Ray Liu

Plop it goes, and one, two, three,My ears are mesmerized.My eyes look out but wander back,When plop, it goes again.Why does the plop, plop, plop

of water hold me soin fascination,

indignation,resignation?

Then, as if my brain revolts indeedat this apparent scheme,

The plops recede toBLEEP,

Bleep,bleep…

Into oblivion.

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