At the Turtle Hospital

Great maimed beasts swim listing in circles,

weights glued lopsided to shells like rippled sand,

drawing them down toward lost

unreachable depths.

Rescue a turtle drifting at sea

and you earn the right to name it, like Adam,

though its true name be always

unspeakable mystery.

If ever I saved a sea turtle floating,

I’d name it, mother, for you—

and you’d laugh,

you who taught me it’s all mystery, all holy,

fish and the leaping, moonlit illusion of fish,

sea wrack and driftweed,

dark tides and the body

bathed in luminescence,

the least, lost creature drifting toward home.

You, who after the stroke swam listing through time

on half-blind limbs, shut out

of the silted sea cave of memory

until at last you dove alone

into the deep welcoming ocean of home.

 EarthSpeak 7, Spring 2011

Poetry Plum

I wonder who it is that names the colors—

those six thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine

hues and tints and shades, the possibilities of paint?

Who wraps and ties these splinters of the spectrum

in tidy packages of words—alchemy, nankeen, tassel—

packages that split and spill their rainbow

contents all across the Earth—lacewing, picnic,

charisma, quest.     I want that job.

Can I be paid in colors—impetuous, carefree,

frolic, rain? Colors would lap around my ankles—

rapture, bubble, nautilus—and rise buzzing into air

as clear as gambol gold—bee and butter-up

and nuance vanishing among the trees at dusk,

the deepening shades of oakmoss, refuge, lark. 

Slowly all the syllables of color leave the sky—

moonraker, lantern light, inkwell, stone

and sleep comes murmuring

the full spectrum of imagine—

enigma, daydream, ponder, soar.

Witch Hazel

autumn

a handful of berries

opening

a blue glass bubble

of remembered light

burnishing

the trunks of birches

sorrow

the old crone’s shadow

on the white moth’s wing

dust motes

in a circle of light

the bubble

shrinking to a stone

inside the chest

stone

to build a fire ring

kindling

flame from ashes

before dusk

the scent

of apples—

bubbles rising

each a different mirror

to a changing face

hearthstone ashes

the price of wisdom  paid—

but

can witch hazel bloom

so deep in winter

firelight fades

the old crone follows

the glint

of drifting bubbles

through the dark wood

 Lynx XXVI: 1, February, 2011

Donors

The out-breath of trees

rides through seawater

on the beautiful

biconcavity of cells

traveling in their innocent

round back to my heart

until the needle prick

diverts them into the plastic

bag that dangles at my side

and silently fills

until the lever trips

to interrupt the flow—

which will continue

in the veins of someone

whose name I do not know

but who breathes

the same sweet air as I—

gift of anonymous donors,

the narrow veins,

the tiny silent mouths,

the myriad leaves.

          EarthSpeak 7, June 2011