Tangle

For only two weeks
my hair
matches
the leaves you shake
up there
so I want to join you,
tangle
in your sharp branches
and swing
until it all falls
inevitably down
Will you float? Will I thud?
I don’t care
what happens after
to your leaves
or my hair

Will and Won't (again)

Happy Halloween! I've not posted anything for quite a while because quite frankly, my life is quite crazy lately. I've got pieces of poems chasing themselves around in my head, and I hope to post something new soon. In the meantime, however, here's a poem I wrote and posted a few years back. I hope it's spooky enough to add to your Halloween enjoyment! ~Erin

I will do anything

I will stuff it

Feed it sweet and sticky

I will sleep it

Snore it deep and throaty

I will soak it

Scrub it wet and steamy

I will jam it

Shove it dark and dusty

I will swallow it

Gulp it fast and bubbly

I will shun it

Slight it rude and sneaky

I will hold it

Clutch it tight and sweaty

I will stroke it

Pet it long and lovely

I will pack it

Haul it long and heavy

I will nurse it

Grow it strong and scary

But look at it

Or name it

I just won’t

Water

I wanted to say
When I saw
Your blue eyes brim
That the waters
That flood so fast
And rush past your lashes
Are the same ones
That spill from mine
That they come
From the same stream
Of love and regret
Of grasp and release
Of swell and stab
Are the same tides
Of contracting and pushing
Of me and other
That clean
And then roil
The bonds
Between child
And mother

I'm back after a bit of a dry spell with a poem somewhat inspired by this week's prompt at Big Tent Poetry.

Wish me luck!

It's been a bit of a dry spell for me lately--

so I'm off

to a cabin on the lake

where I hope to work on my relationship

with my poetic muses

My goal is simple but daunting--

to have at least one poem

to post by Monday

The longer I delay

the next poem

the harder

and scarier

it is to write it

and the easier it is

to put it off

I hope to return

with a postable poem

and I plan to visit

my favorite blogs

once again

Wish me luck!

I miss writing and just as much

I miss all of you.

Sacrament

Hello! I've been away for a few weeks teaching summer school with a sprained ankle and trying to enjoy the gorgeous Spokane summer as much as I can.



This week's prompt at Big Tent Poetry asked us to incorporate something from our favorite poet into our own poetry. Thinking about this caused me to return to and revise a poem I have worked on for a few years. The poem is about giving birth, the most overwhelmingly holy experience I have ever had. At the end of the poem, I use the "Ah! Bright Wings!" phrase from Gerard Manley Hopkins' "God's Grandeur." I have always thought the sound of the language and the image in the last two lines of that poem are among the most beautiful in English.



This prompt has also inspired me to think of the many, many lines from Emily Dickinson that I love, particulalry, "Rowing in Eden--/Ah, the sea!". I'm working on something inspired by that, but am not there yet. In the mean time...


In pain shall you bring forth children, but
Rejoice, O highly favored daughter!
That you should bear such a curse!
And I cry out—
Laying waste to mountains and hills
As a mighty wind sweeps over the waters
For these moments I contain the Genesis of all things—
My own urgent offering—
This is my body, given up for you
I cannot let this cup pass—
The source contracts and pushes
For in the midst of blood and water poured out,
Body broken, torn in two,
Creation continues, Salvation is,
I roll the stone away from the tomb!
I would not wish for numbness now,
For how else could I hear
The flapping of Ah! Bright Wings!
And a chorus of Aves in my ear.

Enough

My sixteen-year-old boy arrived at the hospital at 6:30
that Saturday morning to sit with me.
He sat between the window and my bed, long fingers
curled around my own IV-taped hand.
And he was beautiful,
his lanky body, bent over my bed, partially
shadowed by the window-framed sun.

He had gotten up so early so he could just sit there
before his track and field meeting at school,
but I couldn’t move my morphine-heavy
eyes and lips to talk to him.
It seemed like I should say so much,
but I could only manage a few I-love-yous and
you-don’t-have-to-stays. But he did.

I kept drifting out and tripping up in my own
bad dreams and staples and tubes. I couldn’t
quite hold myself there with him. I kept wandering,
two nights back, to my mumbling pre-surgery prayers.
And I realized I could have done better.
Instead of my weak now-and-at-the-hour-of-our-deaths
and acts of contritions, I should have just said,

Look Lord, Here Lord, I made this boy.
And that would have been enough.

This week's prompt from Big Tent Poetry asked us to create a conversation poem. I kept thinking of a conversation I couldn't have, and came up with this.

Marshalling

they are marshalling
their forces against Thurgood
Marshall and so by

implication line up
proudly against Brown vs
board of education?

old resentments of
racial integration shake
their privileged white fists

at a fearful white
nation and gobble from thick
necks, both red and white,

the code meant to scare
the old, ever-fearful right:
activist judges!

activist judges!
Justice Marshall threatens our
democracy from

the grave! the white man
from Alabama must save
us from repeating

old mistakes but please!
don’t take his remarks out of
their contextual

place. it’s so tiresome.
his objection to Marshall
is not based on race.

but let’s face it—
he never should have made it
a federal case.

OK. Maybe this isn't great poetry, but I am shaking in disbelief right now. Really? THURGOOD MARSHALL is the new judicial boogeyman?