Filled With Ladders, the World
by Wendy Vergoz
by Wendy Vergoz
My father’s hands hold metal legs,
I on the ladder’s penultimate rung
last-but-one-any-higher-too-high.
My father’s hands hold metal legs,
I scoop wet leaves from the rooftop
gutter,
first-house
gutter, wet brown leaves,
soft green moss. I pry the screen off,
sharp,
slide my fingers underneath, my fingers
which,
long ago held white string, Jacob’s
ladder.
Strong-girl hands with slender fingers
hold
Cat’s Cradle, Jacob’s ladder
she climbs from seeds, from the singing
bell
the ringing bell, the bicycle bell
the sweet-girl voice counts
the
ball and jacks singing
Jacob’s ladder, fingering string and jacks
and
feet lift from the ground
to jump the rope to count to sing to
lift
past faces, past light, the faces are the light
voices present voices past
rise past
singing ringing fingers hands
Solid as stone the ground, light as
flowers her feet
ascend
descend, spill through time like purple flowers
My father’s hands hold metal stems
and purple flowers spill through time
we float through time on singing bells
and ringing bells, the ball and jacks
—the ball and chain pull us down
how
dreadful is this place
where tiny men would
pull
us down, we float up past
my mother’s face, your mother’s voice
the voices of our mothers
lift us sing us ring us past the sun and
moon
the stars at night ascend descend and rise again
The
world is filled with my
father’s hands
my
mother’s voice, the rungs of the crib
your father's hands free you from
the rungs of
your crib, we float we lift
ascend through time, time
present, time past
—the ball and chain a nightmare dream
as we float through the purple flowers
the ball becomes a singing bowl
a ringing bell, the chain a string a seed a stem
the
ball and jacks, the jumping rope
the faces stars the faces moons, they
lift me sing me
ring me toward or ring me through
the
girlhood string of
Jacob’s ladder
Jacob’s
gate, we float we rise
through purple-flowered strings of time
how
dreadful is that
darkened place, those tiny men
will never hold us down
My father’s hands and mother’s voice
your mother’s hands and father’s voice
my daughter’s hands, my son’s voice
strong as stone and sweet as bells
the singing
voice, the ringing voice
the world is filled with voices past and
voices now
singing bells and ringing bells
voices light leaves and bells
suns and moons and purple flowers
Jacob’s ladders fill the world,
daughters sons
stems
and seeds, the world is filled with
ladders made
from faces light
and moss-rich earth this place is filled with
I dreamt it on
stone angels
Bio: Wendy
Vergoz is an assistant professor of English at Marian University. Her poems
have appeared
in The Christian
Century and Anglican Theological Review, and her poem
"Unfinished, A Found Poem," written
after 9/11, was read on the first
anniversary of the attacks at churches in five different states. Vergoz
participated in “Arts Kaleidoscope: Art, Poems, and Videos,” an exhibition of
visual art and ekphrastic poems at Gallery 308 in Muncie, Indiana.
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| "The World Is Filled With Ladders," acrylic on board, by Sofiya Inger. |