Poem

DON’T WALK FAST

Rock … fallen leaves … soil.

At first just listen … after a mile

or so sound will distill in your body.

Find rhythm … keep that pace …

then slowly refocus mind & ear

so as to attend the measured silence

between boot swing & boot fall.

There’s the music … call it that.

It was not here before you came

won’t be here when you’re gone.

The spaces pulse … connecting links

making sound complete & movement whole.

Do not avoid the steeper slopes.

Against grade the intervals will

widen & deepen so that you

will hear the lovely up-

curving arc of trail.

  —George Ellison

 

Painting by Elizabeth Ellison

The Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities presents The Wilderness Poet, George Ellison, and his wife, Elizabeth Ellison, renowned visual artist and illustrator of her husband’s works. A reading and art exhibit are in the Great Room at Weymouth on Sunday, Sept. 10, at 4 p.m., $10 for members and $15 for non-members. A reception will follow.

North Carolina State Toast

Here’s to the land of the long leaf pine,

The summer land where the sun doth shine,

Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,

Here’s to “Down Home,” the Old North State!

Here’s to the land of the cotton bloom white,

Where the scuppernong perfumes the breeze at night,

Where the soft southern moss and jessamine mate,

’Neath the murmuring pines of the Old North State!

Here’s to the land where the galax grows,

Where the rhododendron’s rosette glows,

Where soars Mount Mitchell’s summit great,

In the “Land of the Sky,” in the Old North State!

Here’s to the land where maidens are fair,

Where friends are true and cold hearts rare,

The near land, the dear land, whatever fate,

The blessed land, the best land, the Old North State!

Photograph by Tim Sayer of the oldest longleaf pine tree

Reclamation Project

Sunken shapes of claw, paw, toe

betray those who trespass on the beach

when tide is out.

Shells, their chambered lives

destroyed by roiling waves,

spread detritus like chad.

Stones that shine with wet color,

bronze, gold, orange, onyx,

dull to grey as sea breezes

dry them out.

Evening tide awakens, reaches,

erases evidence of interlopers,

leaves the shore like a bedsheet,

taut, smooth, tucked in.

— Sarah Edwards

Cave Men

A full wine rack is

Saturday mornings,

The first day of vacation,

A just-waxed car.

It is a promise of future good dinners,

of future celebrations,

of a future.

A full wine rack murmurs:

Don’t worry.

There’s plenty.

You’re safe.

— Joseph Mills

from Angels, Thieves, and Winemakers

A Natural Petition

When cats go to Heaven

they rearrange the order.

First, who made God, God?

Who decided angels didn’t

need fur, tails and whiskers?

Consider tail as a talking point.

Consider tail as a tour guide.

Consider tail conversational mapping.

But whiskers — ah, they let you

nuzzle a nuzzle. Soft, sexy.

Whiskers are out there

antennae catching vibes.

Whiskers are words

translated into touch.

Fur. . . the grandest of all.

One is always dressed for any

occasion.  Every occasion.

Tuxedo, calico, Bengal, leopard,

Persian. Fur is what the world

would wear if it could.

— Ruth Moose

Hawk

Driving to work, I spotted

the red-tailed hawk perched on the stop sign

at the corner of Courtland & Adams.

Surveying the suburban yards

for his next meal, he looked in my direction,

then turned away, disinterested. 

I lowered my eyes to check the time

and when I looked up again he was gone,

leaving me alone in the warm comfort of my car,

delighted by what I’d seen,

desperate for his return.

—Steve Cushman

Grievance

The winter wind is searching for a love

To love her like one loves the fall,

spring, summer, seasons better thought of

Than her silent biting chill, her pall.

Forgotten, crystal blooms on bare-branched trees,

Crisping air that skates on glassy lakes

Wakes the spirit, opens sleepy lungs to breathe

While snowflakes choose their own design to make.

Now she hisses sleet through blizzard teeth,

Love me for who I am and what I bring.

There is no resurrection without death,

Without a sleep, no dreams, no notes to sing.

Hear my lonely recitative,

Say you love me. Say it to me, please.

— Sarah Edwards

Wintry Mix

Without warning, you alter my day —

wanting more firewood before

it becomes soggier with morning snow.

I see no reason to disembark the sofa.

Horizontal before the fireplace,

I offer you a quilt that needs no tinder —

but your posture is stern and straight.

Rising, I moan like only I can, still unconvinced.

Children sled outside, asphalt’s black spine

revealed with each pass, down the block where

we sometimes stroll comfortable evenings,

or other everyday occasions when we leave,

yet return. Warm in a wool scarf I gave you,

you emerge smiling, extending leather gloves

to fend off spiders and splinters, and seize

some oak, encouraging me to hurry inside.

— Sam Barbee

from That Rain We Nee30

The Gray and the Brown

All morning long the gray and the brown

lower their tapered heads, nibble

 

grass covered in mud from a recent rain.

It is warm for winter, but horses know

 

nothing of seasons save the sun

is a weightless rider and needs no saddle.

 

Come noon, they canter around the field

in tandem, carrying

 

nothing but light. Then they halt

like a horse and its shadow, motionless

 

as Paleolithic paintings in a cave —

a moment so fleeting and perfect, clouds

 

form in the shape of horses, gallop across

the sky in homage.

—Terri Kirby Erickson

Poem

BIRD FEEDER

I never said

we weren’t sunk in glittering nature,

until we are able to become something else.

— Mary Oliver

Perches pique a matter of strategic

challenges, this chess game of

poached positions and rotating

flurries of chromatic energy,

as if the flash and dash of feathers

in flight was more about the dance

and not the flush of necessity’s plight . . .

as if we ourselves were not also

in restless rush, breathing out

the flux and plottings of our small

and uncertain profundities.

— Connie Ralston