Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Group Forum: Artist's Corner :: Two Poems
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ptrdan |
Birds I don’t talk much unless I am certain you’re listening to someone or something else more to your liking than the story I start telling—because you have finished yours and keep watching my lips to see if they know any part of you—and, we both hear the loon lost in wake, a fawn born in grass, the stillness of birds beneath my tongue. I look you in the eye for hours, pile driftwood deep into the afternoon without a word, and as the sky locks waves of darkness within— you grab hold of me amidst the pulse of its storm—and whisper: My God, how long have you been singing? Winterkill My brother fell through the ice on Croxton Pond. He was chasing the wind thrown hat resting in the middle. I knew the ice was thin, but he was much too young to understand the way ice pushes and pulls till it weakens. I didn’t stop him from leaving. I didn’t scream as my mother might or shout as if his father. I watched and listened—no different than if he were chasing a passed ball during a game of catch. For weeks I’ve witnessed sleet glowing as it falls in front of the streetlight—something beautiful wavering in the wind like a dress. When a pond is shallow it freezes to the end of its mucky reaches. “Winterkill” is what most Minnesotan’s call it. Yet, somehow fish are always there come Spring. Maybe someone seeds them in, one by one, someone who doesn’t believe in what this earth has to offer. Saying Goodbye So much like hiking alone in winter pissing on your frozen hands in order to fasten your bootlace walking miles miles in shame. |
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dogwoodgirl |
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ptrdan |
PT |
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dogwoodgirl |
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Jimi |
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HighPlainsDrifter |
I like your style elegant with the word and powerful with the image thanks |
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ptrdan |
Down River Envy the grace of a rainbow the way its lips slip surface long enough to cradle a mayfly you spent all evening unraveling between threads of hair from a squirrel’s tail— a sudden release in spirit, fighting for its life, dragging you down river not a goddamn thing you can do about it. Pictographs on Warrior Hill Maybe if you would have known me as a child, when I drank a bottle of Tinkerbelle perfume in order to fly and whispered secrets to my deaf neighbor Maria as I rubbed dandelions upon her temples. Or as I sat and watched the flecks of my father’s beard surround the sink like fresh fallen snow. Maybe if you would have known me as a child, when I uprooted our garden filled with pansies— or when I left my echo without voice to return. Maybe if you would have known me as a child, when I waded into Nina Moose Lake to sleep with the northern pike— I could leave you this moment as a wolf leaves his leg between the teeth of a trap. |
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dogwoodgirl |
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