BBK memorial poetry | Christopherkuntzart

Barbara Brown Koons

October 26, 1935- June 23, 2021

Selected Writings

The Clock-Maker’s Daughter

Beyond the counter where I stand,

the door into the workroom frames

her portrait like a small Renoir-

her face, the focal point of light,

eyes steady blue beneath the blond

hair falling smooth upon a white

blouse, its collar edged in lace.

Perched on a stool, she leans toward her father’s hands, her own hands clasped.

She’s tucked one foot beneath her;

the other, in a pink sock, swings free.

I have brought in the antique clock

from my grandfather’s pharmacy;

It lies before the clock-maker,

its hands and face removed. I watch

the child’s eyes follow her father's hands

as he probes into brass and steel.

The image of the two of them,

intent among the rosewood tones

and shadows of mahogany,

turns in my mind, an old key

unlocking a familiar door-

where Grandfather halves a tulip bulb

to show me how the flower hides,

it isn’t there when parchment

layers fall away. My clock

begins its slow tick-tock,

blending into other clocks,

like water running slow as melting snow.

I see the suns and moons revolve

in unison, and understand

the click of memory that stops

within another time and place

and then swings on, I am

still there, in the pharmacy,

with its tall rows of wooden drawers,

medicinal odors of peppermint,

camphor cloves, cod-liver oil-

still the child who sits

beside her grandfather at work,

perched on a stool, breathing in

the scents of his mysterious trade-

and at the same time, I am here,

part of today, in this small shop

where my memory swings, like her foot,

back and forth, back and forth.

- in Night Highway (2004)

Souvenir

My father caged paper lions

with matchstick bars;

folded, pasted, painted, strung

a toothpick trapeze from a fishing line;

and The Greatest Show On Earth

paraded across our dining-room floor

into a tablecloth tent;

marching to brass razz-ma-tazz

only we could hear.

Our small ringmaster

in his red-crayon jacket

eventually disappeared

into the vacuum cleaner

along with several monkeys and a clown;

our elephants were overcome

by the roaring wind of its maw,

forgotten

until today, with my own children

seated in a steel arena

higher than a trapeze glides-

far below, a ringmaster

with my father’s eyes

snaps a whip-crack recognition.

My cardboard circus shimmers

in white-striped zebra light,

flashing me back,

back into a dusty tent

billowing luminous as a balloon,

with tigers bursting red

through orange paper fire;

drums, trumpets, dancing clowns,

popcorn, peanuts, souvenirs-

The ringmaster bows

with my father’s smile, tells me,

“Take your circus home with you,

tucked into a secret pocket,

slide your childhood tongue around it,

taste glitter, grit and straw.

it’s your chameleon, green and fleeting;

your pink and peacock feather bird,

singing in a yellow wind,

a purple pasteboard sky.”

-In Night Highway

About her childhood:

"While Father was at work at the store, Mother might be playing her violin with friends in a string trio or quartet in our dining room. Our house was filled with paint and ink and paper and color and music; odd meals at odd hours; people sleeping in the daytime and laughing, smoking, and talking into the night. It all seemed perfectly normal to me..."

- in: Tears, Prayers and Chocolate Sodas (1985)

Barbara and her little sister Linda watch

their father at his drafting table

Barbara's mother, Anna Von Endt Brown

About her grandmother,

Nora Steltz Brown

Pert, bright, brown-eyed, her demeanor and bearing resembled the birds she loved. She fed wild birds in the yard, flapping over the grass in apron-flinging frenzies to chase away cats and crows; and she kept tame canaries caged in her kitchen window, where she led their chorus with her own warbling whistle. She could whistle better than most men or boys- clear, bell tones, that rang in harmonies of her own creation.

- in: Tears, Prayers and Chocolate Sodas

Abouyt

About her grandfather,

Hugh Maurice Brown

Long-boned and thin, with a fringe of white hair and a steady blue gaze, Grandfather was a quiet man who never hurried. He walked slowly, talked slowly, and was methodical in all his habits. Hanging loose on his spare frame, his clothes always seemed slightly too large; baggy trousers, rough fabrics, an itchy wool cardigan with wooden buttons. But his was a sturdy, protective masculine lap; his arms an unassailable haven from whatever terrors, real or imaginary, might be pursuing a child. A deliberate, contemplative man, he lived in rhythm and harmony with life and time passing.

- in: Tears, Prayers and Chocolate Sodas