From the monthly archives:
September 2009
Communion
I am the tuck of turquoise water.
the slap of spray on ocean rocks.
I am the boat, the effort
of her engines, the voice
of the captain pointing out
the woman whipped against the cliff
by wind, her red cap.
I am the trails of bindweed
at her feet, the labyrinth of roots.
I am the wind that whips
the woman bent to her words.
I am her book of poems and it is I.
I am the pages in it, both written
and blank, the knapsack she drags
behind her like tradition,
her can of cola, her plum.
I am the doe she startles on the path,
the mud mire she skirts,
the stump she stumbles over,
her fall among the stones.
I am the blue door she opens,
the kettle she rinses,
the tea she sips to warm herself.
I am the warm.
I am the purple bruise rising
on her thigh, the salve
she will apply at bedtime.
I am her bed with its shroud
of prickly wool, the bedsprings,
the dust that shapes them like a shadow.
I am thelast word she reads
before sleeping and I am her dream
of no words, but of drifting
on a blue-green ocean unil she
dissolves, then settles like lichen
along the narrow fissures of the rocks.
Jan Bailey
September 5th
Summer ebbs out.
We look for warmth where we can find it,
cat and companion
in tide-pools of sun,
until chill air stirs us, moves us on,
itinerants,
following a season’s shoreline,
light’s retreating tide
as far as time allows.
Marjorie Mir
