Six Poems – Collectively Entitled “Earth’s Love”
originally published in Issue 1 of Crow Literary Journal, Summer 2018
EARTH’S LOVE
earth’s love is stronger than sky’s
paling the starlight, blanking the moon
damp soil, arched ferns, and the mossed limbs of nurse logs
swallow the gears of thought
branches drip from last night’s rain
all is wet and soft
living silk slides, slips, holds fast at last
purged of anything divine
this is the realm of hunger and lust
the feeder of flesh and bone
feet fall on stone and root, eyes lift, hands reach
a fiery soul is born
NISQUALLY DELTA
lichen doesn’t cling to rock, it complicates the stone
moss drapes every inch of tree, not just the branch alone
the marsh can’t quiver from a single bird before the flock takes flight
clouds don’t drift over sodden fields, but hold, release, and drench
those who thirst for Northwest rain, and revel in the quench
HER CURSE
the eye she lost rolled up on the beach
she knew it from its wink
and the blue iris, flecked with black
was so sweetly familiar
from hours she spent staring in the mirror
hungry to know how
another would see her
which is why the eye left in the first place
though it didn’t say so at the time and wouldn’t say so now –
the remaining eye wept with joy at the return of its mate
the missing eye didn’t
it longed too much for the sea
all those eddies and currents
creatures that glowed, plants that swirled, the chiseled
elegance of a coral reef –
back on dry land it closed against the shock of sunlight
and refused to open until darkness fell
turning her into a child of the night
who lived on moonlight and cold sparkle of stars
shadowed and murky
pale, wasted, invisible, and alone
cursed by the whim of her wandering eye
VACATION REVELATION
Palm trees sway in the breeze
Hearts flatten again the gale of deceit
Why expect truth?
Truth is relative
There is my truth
Then, there is your truth
Absolutes blur
Edges turn soft
Like the line of my jaw
The wafered trunk is a miracle of strength
Against the quickening wind
Graceful, resolute
Withstanding any cruelty, any blow, any offense, any slight
You once could, too
But no more
FOR NEVER WANTING
I say I don’t like being alive and
She says, you’re making
God mad
She’s a little stupid, this girl
Adopted by old parents
With a boring pleasant house
Whose dusty sun porch
Looks benignly on the snowbound lawn
I say, what if everything you dream was
Dreamed before by someone who died long ago?
And your sleeping brain is like a magnet
Drawing down all that sticky blue-green hunger?
She has no idea what I mean, so
We play with tiny pink tea cups,
Make the sound of liquid being poured
And might become good friends
If only she knew cold hearts the way I do
Or the slap of hands
Or fear
But she doesn’t
I ask, so how does God pay us back?
And she says, for what?
I think hard, then say,
For never wanting to be born
TIME
Let’s call it a study in detachment
Gradual drift from passion to prayer
Then even that loses strength
We grow quiet, soft, and slow,
Joyous in the face of this timely decay
We’ve given so much, we’re ready now
To hold a little back from this
Riot of shifting light we know
As life