The Ribbon Clerk

[The following notes appear to be planning for a story, which Virginia may or may not have eventually written.]

Rogers family 8 - also tourist home

Very few people came to live in _____ voluntarily. It was mostly the circumstance of being born there and having no choice. When the _____family set-up housekeeping in the old Coppedge house, nobody imagined they would have the impact they eventually did. They were like having the circus or the carnival stay all year instead [of] one single week. Excitement

As if visual were vulgar. Remember how some people used to say they didn't care for television. They preferred to read or listen to good music on radios or records.

The Ribbon Clerk

mix that up with
the Rogers family
the daring teacher
how poverty was a convenient excuse for rejecting vulgarity

[Undated notes by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Mother & Daughter

Mother, you try to die
And I am trying to help you:
This morning I defrosted the big freezer
And scrubbed the bottom of the refrigerator.
Last week I wrote your obituary
And made two copies for your sons' approval.
I called your sister-in-law and
We agreed that your time had come.
Oh, sad, to say.
I washed your favorite dress by hand.
How you hated the unkind automation of great machines to your favorite clothes.
I selected a pair of earrings for you to wear to hear the angels sing
And a freshly polished pair of white shoes
Because it is the proper season.
But mostly I tried in a way you would know to help you leave us and go.
I polished the silver.
Although you will leave from another house;
The table will be set for you in another house.

[Undated, handwritten poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. I had to omit a few words that were entirely illegible, but they were only adjectives anyway. This poem conveys the great tenderness Virginia felt for her mother, who obituary you can read here: "Emily Toy Huntley McKinnon".]

Eve

I have dreamed of being naked
So often I cannot be sure
It has not happened and
Breaking out in a cold sweat
I check to see if I remembered
To dress before leaving the house.
Perhaps I stood at the telephone
Receiving such startling news
That the thought of clothes on
A body still dripping from the shower
Left me as one bereft, losing
All habits and reasonable behavior.

Those dreams I have of nakedness
Terrify and wake me up
To discover that I am
Totally covered with more than ample cloth.
Though these dreams often put me in public places
No one has ever called the police
Or offered to wrap my nakedness in a blanket.
Does some demon inside me want
To go undressed because I can't
Forget my mother saying
How ugly the human body is.
And yet I know she did not really believe such nonsense
For she clothed herself
In splendid materials and much jewelry
And her hats were covered with flowers.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. Another handwritten first draft.]

Shellshock

The brothers, both veterans of World War I, built small houses side
by side, very near their mother's
Their businesses did very well and
The older brother made a path
Strung with lights to walk each night to visit her.
Slightly uphill though later
Graded for a tennis court
Because of the
War he needed the lights, being shellshock,
That mysterious condition which
Explained the somewhat strange
Behavior of certain veterans or their wives
His wife, for instance, was passionate about flowers
The younger brother's wife was not
And he built a big handsome house
Some distance from their mother's
And soon his small house was moved
To another lot they owned of the older brother to
Leaving much land for the wife growing flowers and flowering shrubs
Azaleas rhododendrons & crepe myrtle
The beautiful landscape was
Pointed out to all visitors but
The children of both brothers were sent off to school
And the tennis court grew up in weeds.

The brother who suffered shellshock
Died and later the wife who loved flowers died
And all of the children of both brothers divorced:
So what do we know about doing well in business, shellshock
And the failure of flowers?

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. This was clearly a first draft, handwritten on a piece of yellow notebook paper. Thus there is some grammatical confusion and the lines lack Virginia's usual meticulousness.]

That Was Georgetown in 1950

[December 30th, 1990: Virginia had a letter to the editor published in response to "Is There a Klepto in the Stacks?" The original article is archived on The New York Times website. Virginia's letter was composed as follows...]

To the Editor:

In 1950, when I lived in Washington and possessed a Georgetown public library card, my eyes were opened to the imagination and strategies of those who shelve books in libraries.

My first surprise was in finding Margaret Mead's "Coming of Age in Samoa" in the "Adventure" section, and my second in finding Havelock Ellis's "Studies in the Psychology of Sex" not on the shelves at all. When I made an inquiry, the librarian motioned me to follow her into the closed stacks. There on a secluded shelf for the most-often-stolen books was Havelock Ellis cheek by jowl with "Robert's Rules of Order."

Oh, well, that was Georgetown in 1950.

Virginia Mann
Stanford, Calif.

The Immigrant's Love of Snow

Because it came at night with no intent or purpose,
Like unsolicited dreams of loving women,
Snow was more powerful and precious than rain,
More powerful and precious than pain.

It lay like a beautiful language awakened
Translating his foreignness into beauty,
Refining odd dreams into duty.

Always he moved quickly to believe possibilities,
Kissing the stranger who held him so bravely,
Was it the beauty of snow or the coldness alone he craved?

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann, dated November, 1994.]

Dying in California 2

[The following is an alternate version of the previously posted poem "Dying in California".]

The blossoms begin in February:
Almond turns white as brides,
And Quince blots red against the wood,
Violets mock the cold earth
While hyacinth cannot hold back.

You rest uneasy on your bed:
I think how we trudged across
The lower garden patch,
Past the pear trees and wild
Persimmon's despised fruit,
Entering the woods noisily
And laughing at the snake's escape.

Lifting up the carpet of needles
We dig deep in the woods' floor
Filling pail after pail of sweet decay
To feed your treasured flowerbeds,
Your Mr. Lincoln, dear Helen Traubel,
Queen Elizabeth, Razzle-Dazzle and Peace,
The children of your retirement years.

Those happy times of planting
Bring you back to life but what I can't
Forget is how you felt to wake one day
To find your brother's footsteps in new
Snow and how you always wished you'd
Cooked his breakfast or waked
At least in time to say goodbye.

Now you would shout for quiet
If only you could speak again
In this wild western place
This noisy room where you will leave
The deaf, the blind, those without mind,
A roommate who chooses to speak Portuguese.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Grandfather's Woods

To go to the woods
Follow the path through the gardens,
Starting at the woodpile past the splitting block,
Walk through the tall grass growing by the chicken yard fence,
Then pause for a moment to look yonder at the next town,
Nine miles away, its white schoolhouse like a chalk mark,
Against the sky's edge we later learned to call horizon;
It looks so close, but we have no way to get there,
No automobile, no horse and buggy, we imagine
The ones who live there can see our house
On our ridge as we can see the one building large enough
To hold the entire village of Walls and Liles so agreeable
To call their little town Lilesville, County of Anson,
We scarcely know those people nine miles away
For we are the county seat and all official business
Must take place in our Courthouse, convened by our big bell,
Not to mention our several churches and funeral parlors,
They however, have their own cemetery, every soul written up
In Ripley's "Believe It or Not" sheltered by a single oak tree

To go to the woods
Take a look at the spot where the boys would pitch a tent
For sleeping out and play strip poker until the unlucky one
Must dance about in dark with flashlights played their tricks
Blinding the squirming boy who's never heard of Michelangelo
Don't stop to smell the American Beauty Rose that grows
Against the chicken yard fence, but keep going down the slope
Where butter beans and squash are bearing profusely as okra,
And the pear trees drop their fruit to mush and marmalade
Then cross the lower field behind the long-gone barn where
The family milk cow grazed on rabbit tobacco and native grass,
Kicking up arrowheads from Pee Dee indian camps
But before we reach the grapevine swing
We stop where four trees grow like corners of a house
Readymade to build a fort

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Aerodynamics

The turtle has no wings to flap
Or dulcet voice to sing and rap
And yet if one were meant to race
This paradox would set the pace.

We cannot hide our hands and feet
Nor draw our heads in half so neat.

The ways of Nature contemplate
And thus our shells we simulate,
Direct the flow of air with care,
While turtles plod with time to spare.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Activity

[This is a different version of the previously posted poem "Activity Time", simply titled "Activity".]

Returning from the travelogue,
Weekly escape when Death is slow,
Does the professor's wife remember
Florence where she was a bride
And raw with love and love of art
Or is it all fresh to her and the
Professor she can no longer recall?

At music hour three times a week
Does the old pianist playing by rote
Hear Mozart plain or does he prefer
Muzak so low he hardly hears a note.

Your fight against this strange place
Where February feels like spring
Is almost over now.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Goodbyes

Words said to end the conversation
Seem to pass the time,
They sever head from heart
While tying time in knots
So wet and tight no one can ever
Loosen what little time remains

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Maternity Leave

The mail person is giving birth:
She who knows our family names
And notes the numbers on our box
Is not who mixes up our mail.

The neighbor's stuff in mine and
Mine in theirs or none at all
Makes all things possible when
Thus no sacred rules apply.

Will some letter arrive today
Or tomorrow telling me of your
Afterlife, the satisfactions you
Feel in having dinner with friends.

String beans, mashed potatoes,
Pickled peaches, chow-chow, jello
Salad, parker-house rolls, and
Roast chicken, caramel cake and
Homemade boiled custard ice cream.

Could I have, dear Lord,
Just one more letter
Telling how it is at Heaven's table,
The pleasures of good appetite.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. This one is particularly relevant as Thanksgiving draws near.]

Advice

Poems are like fossils
Dug up by the mind,
Simple as ferns gigantic
And gentle as dinosaur kind.

Take care then with fossils
Unplowed from the ground
For words never die
When once they are found.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. After reading the phrase "dinosaur kind", I couldn't help but think of this poem in terms of Jurassic Park... Photo below by Choo Yut Shing.]

Burial

Out of his fear of fish and fin
Man builds a box to set him in
Another box of strongest steel
Against the moisture of the field.

But we who die while not on land
Are buried by a quieter plan,
For quicker is the soul set free
By fish than ever is the sea.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Wrong Turn

Rain fell on the romantic, historic site
And brought inside the bride and groom
But did not dampen guests or toasts
Until after the last of many cheers
We took a wrong turn on the winding lane
Or didn't take the turn we meant to take
And drove deeply into black country night
Further and further from the city's light
Before consensus from our bubbly brains
Decreed we stop the car and think.

Darkness was like a dream or waking
With insomnia when the power has failed
Or a meaning we could not escape for
Love of Freud no wrong turns or right
Turns without meaning and we had,
The whole car full, chosen gloom.

Not one decisive thought could bring us
Near to light until a dog barked his right
To bark decisively and fear brought memory
Back to trace our path like Mission padres,
Wondering how we could have lost our heads,
To the Mission town and threw our muddled
Selves upon the imitation Mission beds
To dream our imitation Mission dreams.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. The grammatical looseness of these verses, particularly in the second stanza, is very unusual for Virginia's writing.]

Morning at Stanford

Jordan, first President of Stanford and an ichthyologist, once said that everytime he learned the name of a student he forgot the name of a fish.

Morning at Stanford

For follows me;
It waits, like memory:
Father holding the boat steady
For me to climb in,
Stepping ladylike between the
Rods and bait.

He sits with paddle high
Over Ledbetter Lake
Smothered by fog,
As I untie the knot
That sets us free from pier
And Mother, sleeping yet, intent.

Knowing the paths of righteousness,
You glide through water
Over the tree stumps
Where the fish lie deep:
You cast;
The fish strikes.
"There is no better way
To catch a trout,"
I hear you say,
Chuckling softly, skillfully.

Now, at Stanford, I remember that
Early morning lesson,
For the fog chokes the Inner Quad
And hides our mother Jane,
Her chosen message to the Western World.

Here by Olmstead's landscape plan
I wait to see the great tree flame again
And the sweet cacti bloom in this dry air,
Waiting as Jane did for some sign of
Fruitfulness.

At 9 a.m. the clock will chime
Westminster's borrowed tune,
The fog will lift and break
As bikers cross and Don meets Ray,
In Building Ten where money's spent.

Old Jordan loved his fish,
But let them go
To learn the students' names.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. I wish she had attached an explanation for more of the allusions in this poem... If you know what she's talking about, besides fishing and then Stanford University, then please illuminate me in the comments. Who is "our mother Jane"?]

Memoir of the Runner

Wheeled outside by Nurse to wait in the sun,
Tied across the chest and underarms, ordered
Restrained lest I lean too far and touch some
Vision of my drifting thoughts, old dog tricks;
My running days, my walking days, my days are over.

The boy ran hard from practice in late afternoon
Bursting both lungs to reach my chores before
Dusk mocked the promises made in happy faith:
How joyous flowed sweet juices then,
How kind reproach was poured like
Blessing on my sweat.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.

Typing up my grandmother's writings, I have been surprised by the pain she felt for herself and perceived in others. During most of my life I held a childishly simple, cheerful view of Grandma... which was only natural because I was a child.

I suspect this poem was written about my grandfather, Virginia's husband. "My running days, my walking days, my days are over." There is tender tragedy in that line. I wonder if she missed the teenage version of him that she never met.]

Immobility

Two cast iron rabbits
Painted white
Sit on the bright
Green lawn,
Alert to one another,
Making no plans
For the future.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. This one evokes William Carlos Williams' short piece, "The Red Wheelbarrow".]

Divorce

[Trigger warning for horror/gore.]

The magician's wife
Wore black tights and a green scarf
Or was it green tights and a black scarf?
Her skin was pale against the
Black box as the knife fell through
And he saw what he had done,
Turning green as the black
Day dawned red against all others:
Two halves
And now she lay asunder.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

Spring Thaw

An old letter whimpers, skirls, and lets go,
Reborn litter from the melting snow,
Sweet words chasing down the drains,
Embracing, blurring thoughts, wet remains.

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]

In Reply to the Lady's Tears

Love is a plate of onions sliced thin
Straight through to the center
With the green hearts growing,
Wild as sin and tender beyond counting.
Why then are your tears showing
Now that I am packed to go,
Did you think love was a fountain,
Forever damned to overflow?

[Undated poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann.]