Family Portrait

drawing by Lenore Goodell

FAMILY PORTRAIT


in that Valley        a different colored string from each finger     

so that one of another      each knew the other      in Love's Dream  S 
stablished     higher lower firey icey headed     empty headed in 
come come the Serpent round the Sun the S’s       from seen Heaven 
Spillway Rainbow
Joel Ai Rainbow     Son Bird     holding Brewster Feline watching 
Clem Moonrider      the Pointer      still pup    
Full Hill landless Lord over Laughter       he saw him tricking the Sun     
the Father    Bird.    Yoked     Poet       holding     hidden Bowl of Ometéotl     
& Other times the Staff     or Book    or ME
under Whirl around the Sun in vacuum-headed       icey     quest     
Search out       find in leg of the Valley      the dip in Care for 
Fam i ly       Family  portion spread out from Her touch strung hair     
Fishless    Hair
Pisces      morning      sewing      drawing      whirl in birth of swimming
headdress      wood on wood birds flying to the star under many circles
serpents      all tied to the ends of rainbow strings from his fingers
passing as I say to her voice      passing thru his     wood on wood
knocking       the country is blind       & the land he needs for a house
to grow up on for the son    & all them her hand constant voices interrupted
tied together going out in seen thru eras    
March, June, November, & Soon     Seeing it it is all too sugary 
let them have Sight

a little bag of sugar     a   larger one of salt       
one of Chile & all earth's pleasures
one of bones to bang against each other & prayer 
one of winds, the thumb almighty 
one of little mudheads trying to emerge 
one of a stick pointing direction 
one of fertility red leaf lettuce 
one of awkward hesitation     an empty cradle
& the last the little finger from the rainbow string 
the center of the ear      & hearing what you see       

I  see my hands & the garbage on the wall 
owning the spaces    where the eyes can behold      her wonder & his there
where it is directed      & coming back in dreams     we oughtnt to cling to    
who knows?       "prefer the Unknown" where the colors come down in the Spring
December      burning & burning on the head      over the head    
into full light.

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / 9Dec73

This was printed as a duende press broadside at the end of 1973, for a holiday hand out to friends . . . attaching strings with little objects hanging from my fingers proved to be impractical, although I made the 10 little charm-objects, but the strings tangled up immediately . . . but the poem remains as a further testament to 3 Dimensional Poetry in my life . . . things hanging on strings from my fingers appeared in my thoughts along with the poem . . .this wonderful pencil portrait of lenore as fish, me as sparrow hawk, our son as a younger bird . . . in a way generated the poem and was natural as the main part of it . . . love to all and to all depiction of families . . . larry