Poetry

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Tanya's poetry "Retelling": "Dreams of Pan" Tanya's poetry books: "Tarot Haiku" "Celestial Animals" "A Sampler Of Poems"

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· Artist's Statement · In Case You Have Not Visited Before · For Mary Burmeister · Dusk at the Bookstore · Dream, January 10, 2004 · Alameda Lilacs · Marina Village · Mother · Full Moon · Gas Station, Orange County · Wet Boots · Scrap Book	· At The Tea Garden ~and~ For You · Divorce · A Letter to the Dead · The Singel · Spring Rain · for jg · Idea · Is It For You · Autumn Diptych · My Computer Doesn't Like Poetry · Bill ~and~ Inland Mendocino
· Portrait of Dorothy Van Ghent Listening to Glenn Gould's Bach

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The Singel

Out the window		of my posh hotel	sparkling water,
Canal boats		moored and moving	spring sycamores,
Seed pods dangling like ball fringe
Brick sidewalks	bicycles everywhere		I am in Amsterdam.
The Singel is the first canal	out my window
I go walking		down brick sidewalks	strolling easy
Looking close at granite steps	thick doors	smooth architecture
Clean	and	ornamented at the top. Warehouses and condominiums
And a line of people		waiting to get in.	A dark front,
Large windows	smoky glass		with sashes park bench green.	A line
of people waiting to get in	in the shadow	of the church		where
Queen Beatrix was married	in the shadow	a long line
Waiting to get in	and on the sidewalk		posters telling us in pictures
What is to be seen	inside.  Especially the hidden door,	the big board
Made to hide the stairway		leading up to		where she kept
Her diary.	Where two families lived	I hear the screaming sirens in my mind
Under sweet spring sycamores	I sit and her words	flood into my thoughts.
Her confinement		her intelligence	her terrors	and her growing up
Hidden by the big board		made to cover up the stairs.	Just the picture
Makes my stomach knot	and my throat choke	and I turn away
Toward the Singel.		Crossways I see another street of sycamores.
Did she look out at them in spring		sequestered		peeking out
Perhaps	as grown ups looked	the other way?		At night
The sirens screamed	she wrote	and now the sun is sweet		and
People sit out drinking		good Dutch beer and chocolate		Screaming
In the night		and closer		and the two families were
Carried off		and her book		remained	and
Prospered	and when I was a girl	I sat in the back yard		under the
Summer trees	and read	and now I am in Amsterdam	choking
At the sight	of the big board	made to hide the stairway leading up
To where she kept		her diary.

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