We are mourning the loss and celebrating the life of Deborah Pease (1943 – 2014), a dear and devoted friend. The people Deborah cared about were at the very center of her world. Her kindness, her gentle humor, her uncanny insight and perceptiveness, her intimate connection with words (and sensitivity to the world), her groundedness, her integrity, her quiet guidance (Deborah had a beautiful way of guiding by questioning and by voicing her reflections—much like her poems, and she was a great listener), her enthusiasm for our books (she was a maternal – or big sisterly – figure for the press, and for me personally), her inner strength, her keen eye and ear, her vision, her generous spirit, her presence and light will be deeply missed.
Jill
At Ease with Mystery
“Come to me, come away with me,” he says.
“But we are away,” she says.
“Further, much further away,” he says,
Undeterred by her infirm
Determination.
They reach white temple ruins––
Fluted blue columns encircled
By hillsides filled, she fears, with artillery.
She spies on tiny crustaceans
Strangely out of place.
Out of her pack come the guide books,
Cumbrous, distracting.
“Put back the books,” he says.
She resists, then for once
Does as she is told.
They reach the wine-sweet sea––
Black cove of sifted volcanic glass.
In the heat, he is deliriously happy
In the sun, the sea, the precious sand,
Happy she is with him, this woman
Often moody and difficult, she watches
Him plow his walrusy swath
Toward the shore, toward her, he laughs
At his doggy aquatic self, laughs
Gently now as she approaches.
Take an Object
Take an object
And allow it
To be more
Than it is, much
Everything in this room
Has a history
Even if it is new.
If it’s new
I bought it
Because it reminded me
Of someone I once
Loved, and love still.
As for gifts—
They break
My heart.
I would keep here
In these cramped quarters
A red wheelbarrow
If given
With love.
My Father
One evening last fall
On a clear, crisp night
I entered this hotel,
Shoving through the revolving door
(Always slightly hazardous)
And as I was being revolved
Into the grandiose lobby
I glanced through the glass partitions
Of this bizarre invention for human traffic
And saw you, my father, being revolved
Out onto the sidewalk.
We came within inches of colliding
In a (slightly hazardous) hug.
But the inexorable feature
Of revolving doors
Is that the revolution cannot stop.
So there we were—
You pushing (and being pushed) out,
Me pushing (being pushed) in,
At the very same moment.
As we hurtled past each other
I felt the whirl of centrifugal force:
Shock/Love/Pity/Fear.
For less than a second
I saw a hurried stranger,
Too tall for this contraption,
Pleasantly distinguished,
A bit awkward with two big shopping bags.
Then I saw you,
A dramatic metamorphosis
That did something to my blood.
I saw your whole self
As I have always known it
(And after an interval of years).
I saw, too, that we were trapped
In this whirligig predicament.
Unaware, you strode into the night
While I went helplessly around
A second time, and then a third.
Finally inside, I grasped for air and froze.
I couldn’t move for such spun wondering.
So Like Leaves
So like leaves
These feathers seem
They might have fallen
From a tree
Devised of sky.
Two blue feathers
With black bands
And white tips.
Leaves still
Clinging
To the ineffable.
Flight in its True Aspect
The hummingbird, stunned,
Throbs like a heart in my palm.
It came at the plate glass
With its winged roar
Headed straight for the floral armchair.
Grouse do it too, and doves, and the moths
Battering in blizzards at night
Against our undefended glare.
I’m afraid of its beak
But more fearful of its jeweled death,
Its diminished sheen.
My hands are icy with trying
Too hard to warm
This bumblebee bird, its hum
Uniquely attuned to air,
A palpability of soul.
Cautious as a novice, I lift
Between fingertips
A condemned rainbow, the slightest
Misplaced pressure
Capable of murder.
I lean close to its secret, when sudden
As a heart’s leap
It’s free.
––Deborah Pease
This is a beautiful tribute to Deborah. Thank you for writing it, Jill. Deborah was a good friend to the New York Society Library, and I was blessed to call her a friend during my time here as Head Librarian. We had many conversations. Her presence lives on in the spirit of this city, that is for sure. The world is fortunate to have her excellent, graceful poems to share….forever.