Category: Northwest poetry

Friday’s Poem: A Simple Ring of Power

It was at first an ordinary ring of silver

fashioned in 1966, simple in form and technique.

Ideas were sketched; soon one came forward,

completed in mind long before malleable silver

transformed into a small shield with a miniature cross.

The cross angled, a soft slash from left side

of the shield to upper right.

That cross might be a sword, someone said,

what does it mean? and her

nose wrinkled, lips pursed, eyes

on me in vexation and inquiry.

I looked back, perhaps smiled, shrugged.

I kept working. I was sixteen, new

to making such things but had a

kinship with metal’s mysterious ways.

I understood my handiwork.

It was a symbol of power,

of earthly and heavenly protection,

my body, mind and soul made stronger

by the possibilities, the promise of it,

and so, then, perhaps the wearing of it.

Faith in life, in more. I needed it then more than ever.

I needed the kind of light that swept over ghosts

dragging me through life, beyond the hiss and cry

of terribleness, past a blurred life I tried to

clarify yet seemed to still fail me.

Might forever fail me or I, it.

I made the silver mine but somehow it made

itself, that ring, or so it seemed, and then

I wore it on my right little finger. Checked on it often,

keep it polished, and was steadied by the reminder

of strength, the hope that shaped it and emanated.

Then one night I got high, again– floated off,

adventured into woods with others. We felt

freed by our dramatic imagined wildness

when in fact we were not brave, only lonely, bored.

When a police car prowled by we

scattered like the young or hunted do,

rolled down steep hills, through snagging branches,

slinking through night, covered in damp earth,

tangled vines, and the shudder of fear.

Morning came; my ring was lost.

How easily, unforgiveably gone!

I wept as if everything good was leaving.

And I recalled the ring for years, how potent it felt,

how precious. And yet. How careless I was with life.

How I had left more than hand-hewn jewelry behind.

I thought of it today on Good Friday as I strolled river banks.

The cross and shield has long been indelible within,

and it came to be in mudane or sweeping ways,

step by more certain step, and with deepening, daring prayer.

That God never lost me,

that is what I found in time.

That I can live another day and be glad of it,

and that God is here, is there even

when I cannot say where,

and I am certain of it–

and that I may feel lost but am not:

this was and is my key. And the woods

that hold my ring welcomed it, wrapped it close

and for eons have known the same.

Friday’s Poem: It is Spring and I am Gone

If when you seek my presence you cannot

find me, don’t waste another moment looking.

I am far gone, long beyond the perimeter

of a world that captures with its obligations

and chronic neediness, its sweeping promises,

its strategies that fail to mollify or save or inspire.

Where trees branches sweep and kiss big skies,

and clouds sail like mystic ships past the horizon

then scuttle off to work and play elsewhere–

there I may be, following lines of inquiry that ask

what of frog and spider, bee and bluebird,

the filligree of fungi dressing a nurse log,

the startled sea anemones and crowds of staid barnacles.

I am waiting to hear from tiny beetles, snakes that race,

the mossy kingdom that welcomes my fingertips,

and the creek’s cool murk where I dip my toes,

and amber agates that nestle in a sea and sand-hewn cave.

I am caught up in their tales, you see,

their travails and wisdom, and what happened

before there was a name or bones to carry me.

I amble among marsh marigolds and trillium,

stand with arms upward upon a rock in a river and

there a finer light caresses with its radiance.

I weep for the wonder.

How can I not hear stones sing and feel longing?

How can I not be bewitched by genius of flowers?

No man has ever recognized me

like winds with wild and winsome touch.

No friend has comforted or advised me

as have a rising moon and sun.

My knees beneath me, face open.

It is mystery how I love the human

and yearn for otherness.

I am wholly acceptable to the dirt and stars

and blessed by bodies of water.

As I knew these things at ten, I know it now

as time remakes me, older and simpler once more.

Liberation comes to this reshaped toughness

that has so long defined me. Who I am is not

negotiable until Nature speaks her truths.

So stop looking if I am not home to you

know I am lost in this paradise,

alive with myself and more.

But if you wait, I will bring you

silky blossoms, found feathers well used,

a stick or two salvaged from firs and oaks,

and we’ll lean back on a bench by our river,

swapping stories and kindnesses as before.

Friday’s Poem: A Light Ode to This Old Skin

(Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com)

Someone saw my tattoos of

a colorful arc of a rainbow and a blue, red and yellow butterfly

and so asked why, when, was it me?

My granddaughters, of course, nothing I’d pay for;

pierced ear lobes was my limit, then more wild times passed.

For our rapscallion, huggable twins: nearly anything.

I shoved up my jacket sleeves, forearms turned to cold sunshine

and flashed them up and down to show off the art,

while skin crepe-puckered under the array of bold hues.

We smiled at them in a complicity of delight.

The next day while dressing, there was a woman

in the mirror who caught my attention.

Slim expanses came forth with some hillier, and muddly

surfaces marred by small or larger trespasses and repairs,

body pale (if faintly mottled) as a china teacup

but much less elegant. Decidedly pretty declasse.

There seemed to be origami folds in surprising spots,

minute creations I could not decipher.

And my old and new scars: wasn’t that a feather?

And a distinct star. A bruised pinkish petal. And more than I’d thought.

I turned a slow circle; the woman turned, too, eyebrows raised.

It had been quite awhile since we’d both faced the full picture.

There it all was: a 300 (maybe 400?) count rumpled sheet,

a patchwork quilt coming bit by bit undone.

A length of fading organza in need of another dance.

A landscape of home and foreign climes visited

and forgotten, of rough terrains and reimagined horizons.

My fleshy attire, thinning if well-tempered,

drifting but willing its way til the ultimate, bodyless end.

So I covered up the architecture of bones and

swath of flesh, the telltale genetics that in total

comprised a group of stage props for a

somewhat engaging, if longwinded, and unfinished play.

But I was not sorrowful. Only compassionate, I have to say,

if perplexed, admittedly more resigned.

This body has seen the worst, the best and it will see more.

I haven’t closely spied on my age these years.

It has seemed unnecessary. Unkindly.

Too “social media” a dilemma for me.

Then the butterfly flickered in a wash of light,

the rainbow winked up at me.

So I flickered and winked back.

And I washed them off; they’d stayed so long a while.

My forearms looked softer, clean. But naked of fun.

But how good to have possession of

an old canvas for random adornments,

a splash or two of senseless good cheer.

How reassuring, too, to trace passages of life

that map the astonishing, forebearing skin–

how lucky am I to have granddaughters

to brave making me anew.

(For Alera and Morgan)

Wednesday’s Words/Poem: Under the Willows

(Photo by Dan Hamill on Pexels.com)

Love as it finds it way into dreams has

no boundary, no shore that it beats upon,

but marks its presence with upwelling or exhalation,

a rush and gloss of feeling meant to startle, thrill, soothe.

It comes for all, even in the midst of emptiness or anguish;

it visits without warning, a stranger or a friend

that hopes for welcome, and escorts the dreamer into its story.

***

There is a paper boat which carries tender words

and tiny blossoms over water to where you sit, rest.

Under the dancerly willows you wait–for what?– full

of passing thoughts, snippets that escape on

a breeze and tumble in sudden sun.

You are lost in a passage of time,

eyes colored by loneliness and sorrow

that cling to the skin that clothes you.

And then arrives a boat, bobbing, steady, upright.

Hearty in its folded symmetry, it floats without

caution or worry, transported by the very light of lake water.

It stirs you but you think it will pass,

on its way to somewhere exquisite with happiness

as such a good, honest boat would.

But no. It stops at the bank near you

with hands folded over bent knees, face in half-shadow.

The boat shifts closer, leaning toward the muddy bank,

so that you are compelled to move, reach

and lift it up, hold it to your sharp eyes.

Suspicious that it heralds something more.

You scan the other side; there is someone.

He looks back, gifting a smile.

It was he who this empty afternoon conjured

the dream with his boat building, who filled

a paper creation with just enough sweetness,

who nudged it into the greater world 

to see where it might sail, then followed its lead

to you waiting in the fine green light of willows,

as if this was a dream that belonged to you, too,

and so it does, it does.

Friday’s Poem: Midwinter Musing

(Photo by Cynthia Guenther Richardson)

Turn gently to the long darkness, this liminal moment,

then settle in its depth and breadth

and let it make shelter over your worn or scorched places

where echoes of lingering emptiness may rise.

Don’t be afraid. Rest awhile for it is only midwinter upon us.

The dark is compelling, it stirs us, turns us inward where

our ghosts romp and weep,

and it may be rife with loneliness if encouraged.

Fill yourself, instead, with its richness, find traces of shadow

rimming the light that sparks far edges of life.

This draping of darkness is another place to be:

a beginning and ending, a revelation and secret, 

a movement and stasis as time melds

with arc of Sun and brilliance of Moon.

Nature knows herself and you.

Do not rush into midwinter’s magic.

Let it find you, its pensiveness making you

more tender. Curl into it, then elongate

the soul so it meets the farthest horizons.

Burrow; be satisfied with its salve

of hibernal nourishment.

Study the quiet wiles of winter:

taste air’s frigid opaline breath;

greet fog that swaddles tall pines;

hear quiet chime of snow as it nips at earth;

walk by rivers sweeping by in lace of ice.

Let the chants and melodies of winter soothe

and move you, worthy companion.

Make you way into the ancient Solstice,

its mystery a conduit to your true self, to Divinity’s immensity,

(for God, too, loves the dark and paired it with light).

Ask for a reminder so that when another grey

morning seems to swallow itself

you recall that this moment, too, is part of a holy quietude,

and can be generous; it offers up its deep beauty

to you who are as exquisite in winter as in all times.

You are not alone in this thick-knitted

darkness–it covers fox, cardinal,

moose, skink, spider, clam and more.

And even a seeming shroud will day by day loosen

and turn you out into cascading light.

You will remember one more midwinter,

all that it asked and all that it gave,

time to divine your heart and learn its meanings.

Welcome it, then, at your door and be blessed.