The Abalone Heart

Barbara Meyn

Barbara Meyn’s The Abalone Heart is a collection that adheres to a premise Henry David Thoreau held: poems arise from the very ground the poet stands on. And indeed, Meyn’s works stem directly from what’s at hand in the locale of her northern California home. “The importance of the place where she walks is not in her footprints, which are very much like anyone else’s,” writes D.L. Emblen in the book's introduction; “it is in the genuineness of the work that comes out of the place, a genuineness which grows out of the care with which this poet takes in this place.” Meyn’s eye detects the small brilliances of the living world around her, mending the often-ignored glimmers into a form of her own in which discovered connections make the real things significant.

Growing up in Ukiah and Eureka, on the north coast, Meyn attended Humboldt State College and University of California at Berkeley, where she received her B.A. in English and studied poetry composition with the late Josephine Miles. At various times newspaperwoman, teacher, and free-lance writer, Barbara now lives on Humbug Creek in northeastern Sonoma County with her husband. They have two sons and three grandchildren.

A sample poem from the book

Dirge for Submersible Pump

The pump went out today.

Over the spot where it is buried

I listen for its rhythm.

I took the steady throb for granted.

Strange to open the tap and hear

a ghostly sigh, the last breath

of an entity that made life possible,

voice of a rusty artery

through which vital fluid flowed

to the circulatory system of my house.

How long such water lies beneath the ground

is anyone’s guess—long enough

to absorb iron and calcium from rock

and suspend it in a rich brew

that stains sinks and clogs plumbing.

Deep under the earth in an aquifer

where storms of winters past gather,

gather and flow, a hidden river

accessible only through a strenuous effort,

an act of faith, like some difficult love

we cannot see but must believe is there

because instinct forks us to it.

For that water we spend all we have

even though we know that it can leave

a taste of earth and iron in our mouths.