Moses Cleaveland Speaks

Evelyn was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. These lines probably were written in the late 1920's or early 1930's and reflect the changes she had seen in her own lifetime. Moses Cleveland (1754-1806) was a lawyer, politician, soldier, and surveyor from Connecticut. He founded the city of Cleveland, Ohio while surveying the Western reserve in 1796. The reserve consisted of lands claimed by Connecticut in the Northwest Territory which now is north eastern Ohio.

Moses Cleaveland Speaks

Where are the trees that washed their shadow-heads

In moon-lit baths? I thought I heard them pleading

Last night, slim ghosts that stirred the dark, unheeding

The steel and stone that have usurped their beds.

Their voices wore a sackcloth spun of dreads.

Their hands and feet were desolate with bleeding;

Their bodies, shallow with the death of needing

A world whose values clamor golden threads.

The same hewn shore-line streaks Lake Erie’s side,

Worn thin and bare in storm-distracted parts.

But Progress swings its pointed pendulum

And coldly spears a sky of aching hearts.

The shell is but a shell, since Wealth has come.

The splendor has been wrung; the dream has died.

Evelyn Coffey

Invention

Was this a class assignment? I do not know.

Invention

(Shakespearean sonnet)

“How strange that clouds can sail the deeps and heights

Of lucent skies when they are weighted down

With a volcano-visaged rain, whose mights

Hurl thunderbolts and hail with blackened frown!

What phantom chain can bind them to blue mist?”

Thus muses a youth whose spirit clamored mad

To penetrate unburdened space; to tryst

With stars, and draw on custom’s wondering pad

New patterns heretofore untraced. Once thought,

From wood like gossamer his fingers shaped

A model ship and trembled when it sought

To try its wings. Earth’s cynics laughed and gaped.

Today, ten thousand ships sail heaven’s seas

To match the dream that youth flung to the breeze.

Evelyn Coffey

The High Level Bridge

Again, poetry in an unexpected object.

The High Level Bridge

I watch it in the shadows, hour by hour,

A black abyss that yawns against the night

With arms of steel and fingers dipped in light,

Silently calling out the city's power.

I searched its heart that beats with churlish hum

Above the river’s head. All pride and strength;

Cemented walls that spread a giant’s length

Across the plains smoke-dust has rendered dumb.

The city’s weary lumber on its tracks;

The city’s joyous frolic in its train;

The city’s poor seek shelter there from rain;

Or plod across its head with shunted backs.

Symbol of progress, flaunter of its pace,

Your city kneels before your cavernous face!

E. Coffey

Moon Over the FIsher Building

Once again, Evelyn goes to every day objects around her and finds poetry. In this case, it is a famous landmark in downtown Detroit.

Moon Over the Fisher Building

All around me was silence,

And on the earth

I was the only breathing thing.

But the sky above me -

The sky above the dark, still earth -

Was loud with sound

And the sound was light.

Two towers of light

Alone like cymbals

Shattered the cacophony of silence,

And one was of gold that had blood in it,

And one was of gold that had been dipped in a star.

Blood and gold;

Blood is gold and gold is blood:

Vein of the earth,

Vein of Man,

Both bled and beaten and burned.

That weaker blood has swung you to the sky,

That divine, weak blood that is Man,

Blood that will be dust

Long before you are dust,

Though there is more than dust in it,

More that earth in it,

As Man is more than Man

And you are more than light.

Girders of steel sustain your height,

That one day must crumble.

The quiet trees finger girders of cloud

Sustaining the cymbal that has made you sing,

The cymbal dipped in a star.

The quiet trees are part of earth and sky,

Shadows now, and wordless,

Their green strings broken,

Their voices muffled in snow,

But in them no dust.

And in this cloudy light

No dust but a star.

Evelyn Coffey

Lyric

LYRIC

There is no autumn in the spring!

Let lovers’ sonnets lightly wing

Their shining pinions on the sky.

Let love words splash upon the sky!

There is no sorrow in spring air!

Let lovers toss their gilted hair

Upon the sunlight waves of wind.

Let gold hair wave upon the wind!

There is no stillness in spring’s heart!

Let lovers dance with fitful dart

Upon the flowers dipped in grass.

Let lovers dance upon the grass!

Evelyn Coffey

Interlude

Interlude

“She was a lovely little thing.

My heart quite left me when I touched

her hair. It was as gold as harp-

strings and the wind played seraph-songs

upon it as it glazed earth’s floor”.

“I saw two violets in the weeds

one day that gave me back her eyes.

set in a pool of dew they were,

all soft and sweet. They smiled at me,

not pitying, I like to think,

but with a woman’s smile for man.”

Absently , the man retraced his steps

steps, did I say? What would one call

the ceaseless wheeling of a chair

he used for feet? Forgotten was

the bustle of the crowd: forget,

The box of pencils flaunting red

and yellow to the passers-by.

I watched a while and knelt before

the man’s communion with his past.

A medaled uniform displaced

the snarled rags that covered him.

I saw his shoulders square themselves

as if at some command. His glance

was keened to distance, and his ear

To listening.

With joy of heart,

I ran his thought through glowing days.

that smile embraced her smile!

Too soon

the vision passed. A shadow burned

away the mask of reverie.

I almost heard the words that singed his lips:

“Dear God, am I a fool

to live in memories when they

are all I have?”

I shivered as

the wheel-chair faltered out of sight.

Evelyn Coffey

Noon on the Public Square

Another instance of Evelyn finding beauty in an everyday moment.

Noon on the Public Square

The pigeons eat.

Men bring them sacks of bread:

White, rolling bread, with skim

Of brown along its edges.

The pigeons eat.

The sun pulls iridescent jewels

From their feathered throats

And backs.

The pigeons eat.

The air shrivels

At the thrust

Of the gutteral drawl

They whittle

On its breath.

Evelyn Coffey

Each in His Groove

Is this poem "politically correct" by today's standards? It matters not, for it was written roughly eighty years ago by an Irish immigrant's child whose father was killed in a construction accident. She was able to see poetry in the physical working of a road crew. Evelyn wrote on ethereal subjects, but she also was drawn to find beauty in the ordinary and the everyday.

Each in His Groove

There are shadows on the street --

Live shadows, with hearts that beat,

And muscles that swirl

Like rope, as black arms hurl

Burdened shovels into the air,

Out of the air,

Building a street!

Swinging concrete

That oozes thick

Over mute red brick,

The jungle plodder

Feeds his fodder

To the suffocating dust.

Africa seals

A compact crust

For city wheels.

Evelyn Coffey

Confidence

Though this probably was written back in the 1920s or 30s, it seems especially appropriate on this ninth anniversary of one of the saddest and most horrific days in our nation's history.

Confidence

When shadows fall athwart thy path,

'Tis God Who Passes By!

Bow down in peace and praise and pray,

And even while you sign,

Remember this, -- Each sorrow is a shadow sweet

That tells how near Christ's nailed feet

Are walking by thy side

Then Let Thy Soul Confide!

Evelyn Coffey

Cast-Offs

Cast-Offs

A faded piece of silk,
A worn-out gown,
Saw all we had of friendship
Broken down.

“I meant to give you this,”
You coolly said,
“But it will be soft to mop
The floor instead.”

The stinging words live though
The silk is dust;
The gold I thought too dull
For you, is rust.

Evelyn Coffey

* * * * *
(handwritten on the back of one original, these lines:
Shall be my ode to immortality.
For this, the loveliest of man’s estate
All gladly would I wing the sky to west.)

Tribute to Age

Tribute to Age

Let me but see,

And I will wear the sheaf of white,

Its banner straining my blinded sight,

In this, my youth,

With purple truth!

Let me but know,

And I will wear the sheaf of white,

That shining pinion of Life's night,

Upon my head

Until I'm dead!

E. Coffey