Christina Pacosz

A native Detroiter, Christina Pacosz has been writing and publishing since the mid-twentieth century.
Notes from the Red Zone, originally published in 1983 by Seal Press, was selected by Seven Kitchens Press in their ReBound Series in 2009.  Other chapbooks from Seven Kitchens are:  How to Measure the Darkness, 2012 and In the Outlaw’s House, 2019.

Her journals, papers/etc. are at the University of Michigan, Bentley Historical Library.  She lives in Kansas City, Missouri.

At Morskie Oko Lake, Zakopane

It is a gray country

even when the sky is blue

and today it is raining.

Mist gathers itself

a quiet fist

clutching the mountains.

Nuns in gray habits

walk over gray rocks

circling the lake.

If this is too much gray

look at the trees, green

bodies, beds of moss

waiting, the small blue

eyes of niezapominakji*

watching.

The nuns have disappeared

and only the shore of the lake

the eye of the sea

is visible, a narrow

border of aquamarine

filled with trout flicking

tails in cold water

swimming in the only

sky there is.

*forget-me-nots

Also, appears Private, International Review of Black and White Photographs and Text, From Poland, Issue No. 41, Summer 2008

The Trumpeter of Krakow

I swear on my honor as a Pole,

as a servant of the King of the Polish

people, that I will faithfully and

unto the death, if there be need, sound

upon the trumpet the Heynal in honor

of Our Lady each hour in the Tower of

the church which bears her name.

Ancient oath of the Trumpeter of Krakow

The whole city listens

when the trumpeter plays.

People open their ears

and look up at the sky

cloudy today or a hazy

blue, smeared with dirt

from Nowa Huta’s steel

mills. A whole country

of ears waiting

for the broken note,

as if listening

could make the song

complete.

I am listening, too,

and the listening does

heal the brokenness

like the flash of color

on a butterfly’s wing

makes us happy

when we are not.

The trumpeter plays the hour

and has for 800 years

since the Tartars

surrounded him, reminding

all who listen:

Each of us

is invaded

daily, hourly

minute by minute

by time

and its deadly

arrows.

How to sing

from the highest steeple

and warn the city

with the sounds

that live

in us

and the world?

Also, appears Private, International Review of Black and White Photographs and Text, From Poland, Issue No. 41, Summer 2008

For Ciotka*

Felinow, August

We are cutting

off the poppies’ heads

long after

the bloom.

It is the seed

we want.

Add egg, sugar, flour

and vanilla:

poppy seed cake.

My mouth waters

as we walk the row

gathering dried stalks

into our arms.

I tell you I will keep

one pod. When

I shake it thousands

of miles away the quiet

sound the seeds make

will remind me of you,

the crone of the family.

Your head spins, your heart

hurts and all

the food you eat

comes back

to trouble you.

You do not like

to think

of yourself

as dried up.

A dried-up woman

takes up room

by the fire.

So you stand and cook

all day, walking across

the muddy yard

to climb the wood pile

in search

of the driest pieces.

How is it

that wood

and poppy seeds

are at their best

when dried

but you are not?

aunt

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15

1.

She has gone

to heaven

where she will

intercede

for us.

She is the earth

and cannot

forget us.

Last night

under a half moon

she rose

with the smoke

from the burning

stubble, a bonfire

in the fields

lighting her way.

When she passed

the moon

she cast

a shadow:

this dream

Through the muddy

fields of Felinow

three women

come to me

to show me a spring.

I search for it

all day

in every leaf

and lark.

2.

My aunt arranges

a bouquet

her daughter-in-law

has gathered

to be blessed

in church.

Mach* buckwheat barley millet

dill dahlias asparagus fern

cabbage leaf daisies gladioli

green beans roses and phlox

When the next cow calves

the dried bloom

will sweeten her

first drinking water

and Mary’s blessing

flow from her udders.

3.

The sow and her ten piglets

roam the locked farmyard.

I sit on a stool

in the mud and sun.

We are all on holiday.

The odor of chamomile

strong as church incense

after the rain

and the pigs’ rooting.

The sow makes

a deep sound

in her foraging

and the piglets run

on tiny hooves

through the mud

toward her.

*poppy seed

4.

A woman wearing

a white head scarf

and a red dress

walks the rutted road

on her way to church

carrying a bouquet.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin May, August 15, original musical score by Annelinde Metzner, Asheville, North Carolina, June 1989.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (text used and titled The Abundance of Mary), included in a CD, The Abundance of Mary, Songs and Poems of the Divine Feminine, recorded live at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Asheville, North Carolina, August 27, 2006, produced by Annelinde Metzner.

The Shrine of the Black Madonna at Czestochowa

You are the light of the world.

A city set on a hill

cannot be hid.