northcountrywoman - anthology

Posted by: Chesil (---.clvdoh.adelphia.)

Date: August 17, 2004 01:21PM

Rather than post links, I thought I would post the poems to make easy reading of what is a wonderful body of work by this excellent poet.

All poems by northcountrywoman

To Poets Needing Help

You are a fox
laired in a hidden burrow.
Feral and quick,
you run too much in the dark.

You raid the neighbors' farms.
Don't ask
what to do about
the feathers on your muzzle.

Seeing the Wind

I have seen the wind
in a vortex of dry leaves
rising between buildings
as if the laws of gravity
had been repealed.
I have seen the wind
in a photograph
of a pink rose
where whorls of petals
flowed into background
and the whole picture
seemed made
of spinning light.
I have seen the wind
take your words away.
Were you saying
you loved me--
that we would meet again?

The wind moans
around the house
tonight, invisible
and wordless.

DON'T LOOK DOWN

Scheherazade told stories for her life,
patterned the palace walls with scenes of greed
and dust and pageantry, her role as wife
to end the boredom of a king and feed
his restless heart and soul for one more night.
Her voice came from the moonlight by his bed,
as soft as silver water, clear as light.
Sometimes she glanced at the Other one, head
hooded, dark eyes gentle and serene, One
who stayed in shadow, patient in the dark,
who knew she walked on slivered glass and won
each day's reprieve with crimson footprints, mark
of the story-teller clan. We have heard
her sing in the caged heart's night, like a bird.

WHALE SONG

When whales lived on land,
gentle browsers,
perhaps they were silent
as deer are silent
in the heart of the forest.

They lived at the edge
of the fertile sea.
Pressed, they dove deeper.
Looking down,
they stopped looking back.
Forced, they made
great, dark songs
heard for miles
underwater.

NORTHCOUNTRY PLEDGES

In the name of the broad-boled Douglas fir in the back yard
where the moon lies tangled six branches deep,

I swear
that when you laugh into my mouth I will swallow the sound
like champagne; it will bubble in my blood forever.

In the name of the the most elegantly black-and-white patterned
loon with its cold, amber eyes and eerily falsetto cry,

I swear
that when you fussily and didactically plant tulip bulbs,
you seed flowers in some dry wasteland of my being.

In the name of the great horse-headed moose lunging
from the lake at dusk with its broad, black antlers
streaming a galaxy of lily pads,

I swear
that I will love you imperfectly, unwisely,
and to the best of my frailties.

Weather Report

The house looks strange since the power went out,
as though the living left some time ago.
By candlelight I walk a shadowed route
through rooms I loved but now I do not know.
Sparrows huddle in trees outside the door.
I'd let them in but it's no warmer here.
Inside, a grayness settles to the core
and frost is taking all that I hold dear.
The fire has burned to embers; the light dies.
Love ends too, sometimes without a reason.
There can be no gray colder than your eyes
looking past me to some summer season.
Ice takes the naked bough to which I cling.
The storm front drives south: there will be no spring.

A Bowl of Rocks

Split neatly as a Babylonian tablet
from a dry hillside in Oregon,
this pale rectangle of rock
is inscribed with the language
of ferns,
from a time before dreams.
Brilliant, edgy,
black obsidian
glitters beside a small mud-gray
knobby thunderegg.
Such an unpretentious, drab,
sullen little stone!
Inside rests an amethyst seed,
a secret, glowing yolk.

Ocean Sunset

The clouds are burning
and gulls float like embers
in the darkening sky.
Waves crested with fire
unfurl into shimmering
silver silk.
Sea grasses ripple
as the land exhales.
A final slash of red
opens the horizon
and the sky bleeds stars.
Firefall then.
Firefall quenched in brine.

A Love Song

You are my antidote, my smile-maker,
my ambrosia: soul-shaker, fuzzy,
unevolved, big-footed,
intensely interested inspector
of my nooks and crannies;
impatient towel-grabber,
you dry me vigorously
as you would a wet pup.
Moan-maker and breath-taker,
sign-giver and thirst-slaker:
my indelible lover.
You are welcome
to pasture your sheep
in my valleys.
Pedantic, goofy, a poor loser,
you teach me off-key love songs
and I will sing faithfully now
until time
snaps shut
like a fan.

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