by Jane Yolen
The Forest Opens Like a Yawn
The forest opens like a yawn,
as if it knew I was coming,
has seen me before,
can’t be bothered to resist.
The forest parts like a curtain,
once drawn tight against the night,
now opening for the performance,
an invitation to applause.
The forest lies like a carpet,
like a bathmat, like a woman
used to being beaten, like a girl
who runs away from home.
The forest opens
and every tree holds out its leafy arms.
Stopping to Consider
Whose woods these are I think I know,
a line I learned at school
but never really considered.
Miles to go before.
Miles to go after.
Though I think I know now
there are no happy evers.
Only happy moments.
Bird song.
A spotted fawn
as dappled as the shade.
The oratorios of frogs.
A single butterfly.
And the deep thrumming
of the forest that too many people
mistake for silence.
Call and Response
I hear birds calling back and forth,
a duet I will later learn.
This is a place of correspondence,
perpetual conversation,
letters written in the air.
River asks a question,
rock asks one back.
Aspen asks birch, birch asks
bracken, bracken asks earth,
earth holds all the answers
tight against her breast.
I have questions I don’t know
how to ask. There are answers
I don’t know how to hear.
Here everything talks
at the same time.
I need to learn how to frame a question.
I need to learn how to listen.
Stones Across a Stream
The water sings as it rushes by.
If you drink me, you will become
a wolf, a fox, a deer.
Hunger brings strange dreams,
stranger longings.
Papa says water over twenty-one stones
becomes pure. People take longer.
Counting the stones, I step across.
There are only nineteen here.
Papa says we must become water.
I think I must become stone.
I want to get through Autumn
without having another fall from grace.
Here Where the Path of Healing Starts
This is the path of healing,
silver in the moonlight,
white stones glowing
like will-o-wisp
signposting the way.
On either side, pulses
of bloody trillium
warn the weary:
do not step out here,
do not stop out here.
Trees bend over with burdens
of old leaves, new,
baring shadow teeth,
whispering secrets
only trees can decode.
Behind, lies only
the cutting knife
devil’s bargain,
severed past.
Behind, the clean words sulk
in their dishes of soap.
Bubbles burst on their way
to a stainless heaven.
Here the colors run riot,
little birds mob a hawk,
bats jitter on parade.
The forest is anything but silent.
I step onto the path,
knowing it is but the beginning,
one foot, then the other,
till I gleam silver all over,
in the moonlight,
starting with my hands.
Evening Meadow
The hallelujah chorus of birds,
a feathered symphony,
mossy grass beneath my feet,
trees standing silent watch
from the edges of the meadow.
A fox makes a parenthesis in the air,
hunting a meal. A woodpecker
jackhammers his invitation.
Leaves tremble when I pass
as if fearing contagion.
I am becoming a poet.
I am thinking in metaphors.
I am walking through a poem.
Learning the Words
The longer I am in these woods,
I learn words.
I become cornucopic
with language
which rolls around my mouth
like dark chocolate,
like butterscotch
like peppermint.
There’s no one to caution my tongue,
no one to soap my mouth,
no one to bridle my brain.
Here I find such words as smut,
putrefaction, ordure, sludge,
all synonyms for filth
my father doesn’t know.
But beautiful words, too:
allure, taradiddle, calliope,
mellifluous, dulcet, paradigm
which he has never spoken.
There is no end to such learning,
And no seeming end to these woods.
Little House in the Wood
It’s unassuming, uninviting,
a pimple on the backside of the birch forest.
It makes no good first impression,
no impression at all. Reminds me
of a girl like me, on the first day of school,
on the last.
A light in a window, flickering,
smoke making curlicues above the chimney
like a child’s first drawing of a house.
The little hut is fenceless, defenceless.
I am not afraid.
One step, two,
and then the house itself moves,
turning counter-clockwise,
widdershins,
shows me its door.
The lock grins open, baring its teeth.
It spits out a word.
CHAPTER FOUR
Meeting the Baba
That First Word
That first word hangs in the air
between the house and me,
droplets of spittle suspended
in the dusk.
Later, I learn spittal meant hospice,
hospital, journey’s end,
so foreign I don’t know
if it’s clean or dirty,
whether welcome or warning.
I smile, say the magic word Please,
that all wheedling children know.
An upstairs light trembles.
Curtains twitch like eyelids reading text.
The door sticks out its tongue
testing for, tasting for honey,
then sighs with happiness,
lets me come in.
Knock Knock, Who’s There
It’s a joke, you know.
You don’t know?
Knock knock,
Who’s there?
Witch.
Witch who?
Not who.
Where’s who?
Who’s on second,
Which is on first.
Something like that.
I saw it on tv.
One of the few shows Papa allowed.
Two old guys,
one fat, one thin.
A routine, Papa called it.
Rhymes with clean.
Well, it was funny at the time.
Before the door was closed.
Was opened.
I See the Bony Hand First
I see the bony hand first,
knuckles broken on the wall of time.
Dirt under long fingernails.
It signals me i
n.
I see the crusted eyelids next,
the crafty blue eyes, so startling
in that face, wrinkled as the sea.
Hair the grey of winter waves.
And then she smiles.
It proves no improvement.
Cheekily, I smile back.
If she’s surprised,
She doesn’t show it, grunting
an animal acknowledgment.
It’s invitation enough for me.
Meeting Baba Yaga
She’s oceanic, a mighty force.
Teeth so full of fillings,
they might as well be made of iron.
Swollen knuckles on her fingers,
plain and round as worn wedding rings.
It aches to look at them.
She shuffles about in tired slippers
that slap at her heels like velvet-pawed cats.
Veins in her ankles broad as the River Don.
Eyes as light blue as a waterfall,
shot through with mica glints.
I cannot read her intent.
First she smells like a musty closet,
then like a garden of herbs,
tansy and thyme and the musk of sage.
I hold out my hand in greeting.
She grips it so hard, I wince,
whisper—Damn!
Papa’s voice in my ear
saying, Don’t swear.
I taste soap.
The old lady laughs.
You’ll do, girl, you’ll do.
And I do.
Touring the Little House
It’s so much bigger than its seams,
room after room, appearing
along the hallway; river pearls
on a watery strand.
Here rooms grow like gourds
in a garden, all sizes, all shapes,
all colors, with windows in each wall,
no two ever the same.
It’s so much bigger than it seems,
as if expansion, like a land war in Asia,
is the point of living here.
It seems I have a bed, bathtub, closet.
It seems she knew I was coming.
It seems the house knew how to prepare.
The Baba is unsurprised by seemings.
They are part of her witchy trade.
Chores
The Baba doesn’t ask, just tells me,
the list as long as a death sentence,
but not as final.
Sweeping of course. And dusting.
A house that can walk about has rooms
full of sand, weeds, seedlings, burrs.
Making turnip soup each morning.
That ugly, prolific old root gives gladly,
like a missionary in a cannibal’s clay pot.
Sprinkling poppy seeds around the foundation.
For the hut’s protection, she says.
Get an alarm, I think, but don’t say it out loud.
Washing the dishes, drying them on the cutting board.
For one old person, she uses a lot
of utensils, especially sharp knives.
Answering questions when the Baba asks.
After a while, I just make things up.
She seems to find that amusing.
Feisty Girls
Baba Yaga prefers them bright, asking questions,
challenging her, turning their backs.
She likes the ones who stick out their tongues,
laugh at death threats, use foul language, never beg.
She wants them to sweep the hut without whining,
empty the compost without complaint,
cook the soup, put a hand on the pestle,
learn to steer.
If they can sing the Volga Boatmen song,
dance the Kazachok without falling over,
recite Pushkin from memory,
know all the patronymics for Rasputin,
that’s a plus.
Boys, on the other hand, she devours whole,
spitting out the little finger bones.
Even if they can dance and sing.
Even then.
The Baba’s Iron Nose, Iron Teeth
Hey, old lady, that nose, those teeth
are pitted with age.
When did you last see a dentist?
You can’t go out looking like that;
you’ll scare the neighbors.
All I need is a strong polish,
some good grade wire wool,
soft brush, dishcloth, cotton gloves,
and a big tin of WD40.
All you have to do is lie back,
close your eyes, open wide,
think of the tsarina.
Trust me.
I’ll do the rest.
Mortar/Pestle
Baba Yaga has never learned to drive a car
though she travels many miles each day,
sailing in her granite mortar, steered by a pestle.
The thing smells of crushed garlic, borscht,
dark Turkish cigarettes, kvass,
a Russian stew of bad habits, and tall tales.
No one sees her of course. She doesn’t exist
unless you count bad dreams. Yet still she flies,
the friendly and unfriendly skies,
across tundra, taiga, major highways,
avoiding traffic jams, roundabouts,
only bothering the occasional helicopter
or low-flying private planes.
Now and then, aliens are reported,
or the government says she’s a weather balloon,
or sometimes an incoming storm.
But that blip of unknown origin means
she’s off to the grocery store or bingo parlor,
mahjong game, or bowling alley again.
Or maybe the latest superhero movie
though she says their teeth are too white, too even,
wonders how they can eat with those dainty choppers,
gnashes her own.
When she gets going nothing,
nothing stands in her way.
CHAPTER FIVE
Vasilisa
A Small Knock
The knock is small, barely a scratch,
I open the door without using the peephole.
On the doorstep, tentative, another girl.
I smile, usher her in. Usher, like a servant,
or the person at a play with a flashlight,
the one who shows you to your seat.
She smiles back and comes in, turns left,
always left, widdershins the Baba says,
walks the long hallway, finds a room.
It’s as if she’s been here before, knows her way,
or if she has dreamed of coming here,
who is, herself, as gossamer as a dream.
The room she turns in to is my room, now hers,
Like an explorer planting a flag. We share, she says.
Sisters. Companions. Cousins. Friends.
There is no word for what we are.
Saying Hello to the Other Girl
Hi.
Hi.
I’ve run.
I’ve come.
This house.
This hut.
My father.
You slut.
I hurt.
You hope.
I hate.
You dope.
I cut.
You ran.
From Father.
From man.
You know.
It’s true.
We both.
We two.
Who knew?
In Vasilisa’s Bed
So now there are two of us here, sharing a bed,
which grows larger the longer we lie in it.
Vasilisa, she says suddenly, singsong.
pointing to her tidy, perfect chest.
Natasha, I tell her. The kids called me Nasty.
Tash, she says. Never c
alls me anything else.
She’s small and fine-boned as a china doll,
hair like flax, two fat braids, eyes grass and gold.
Not at all like me who grew large and lumpen,
dark from the firing of the kiln.
We are taken for sisters nonetheless.
How We Are Different, How the Same
I chew with my mouth open,
She chews with her mouth closed.
I snore in my sleep, or so she tells me.
She makes little mewing sounds, like a cat.
I like to walk outside, sit on a stone,
watch the river, make my mind go still.
She sings all day long, like a demented cuckoo,
like a Disney princess on crack.
She’s magnet,
I’m iron.
We draw ever closer.
It’s an uncomfortable,
comforting thought.
Being Sisters, Becoming Friends
We talk the first day. Tell jokes the second.
By the third we are truly sisters,
sharing my story, her story, history.
Turning our backs to one another
when we get undressed, dressed.
She gets the bigger part of the closet,
the major part of the bed, the first draw
of water in the shower, as if they are all her due.
Perhaps they are. I don’t care.
It is the first time I have a sister.
A best friend.
Any friend.
Vasilisa’s Doll
I came with nothing,
but bad memories
and an empty backpack.
Vasilisa’s mother
gave her three things.
She never travels without them:
a tiny wooden doll,
last of a nesting trio;
an iron comb with teeth like hooks;
a blue ribbon the color of water.
Each came with a warning
which Vasilisa never shares.
Sometimes when she’s asleep,
I run my fingers over the doll’s head,
touch the iron tines, thread the ribbon
through my fingers.
But I never do this when she’s awake
in case she’d mind.
The Mirror Knows Her Name
The mirror knows her name,
She’s the Beautiful,
It tells her daily, but she doesn’t answer.
She’s like a princess
