Lines Composed after the Lasagna Dough Has Been Made
I get it now—elasticity—
the tug and curl of edges
against arms and flat surfaces.
Forcing the matter. The staying.
The giving.
Five lines (day two)
elliptical shifts
bequeath February with
truant light; shape shifter skies—
like lamppost bulbs—following
the timed ascent to evening
Five lines
Years ago, when I fell into what is sometimes referred to as “writer’s block,” I found an outlet in haiku, tanka, cinquain, and other short form poems. I made a pledge to myself to write three lines a day, sometimes five. I was able to keep it up for over a year, until the file folder, neatly titled “haiku a day” was inadvertently sucked into the cyber trash.
I’ve been in a little bit of a rut lately, so here is day 1 of the new “five lines a day” folder.
no mind for words, no
sink hole to burrow or free
unforgivable limbs
from pen caps whose plastic scratches
leave no trace of helpful blood
Just around the corner
With temperatures dipping, snow falling or rain threatening, I have thoughts of spring and dreams of robins and tortoises, bees and rainbows. Please, “Tell me what time the weaver sleeps . . . ”
Here is Emily Dickinson
Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning’s flagons up
And say how many Dew,
Tell me how far the morning leaps—
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadth of blue!
Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs—
How many trips the Tortoise makes—
How many cups the Bee partakes,
The Debauchee of Dews!
Also, who laid the Rainbow’s piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite—
Who counts the wampum of the night
To see that none is due?
Who built this little Alban House
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who’ll let me out some gala day
With implements to fly away,
Passing Pomposity?
Winter Work
Winter Work
Snow piles thick
like skin of lost pachyderms,
the ones filed into burnt
tomes of obsolete
glossaries. Shovel in hand
I plow with fortitude
into bellows of white,
a knee’s worth, sugary
and full of honeycombs.
Slopes and muscles meet
and I scoop into wicked
luminosity, slay lathered
pathways and toss
the blizzard into
the mammoth’s toothed void.
Until Nomading Ends
Giving up the shell can be hard, but so worth it. After nomading, we find home.
Abandonment
Naked, the crab forgets
his hermit ways, creeping
in the oyster underworld,
brushing against minnow fins
and ugly red claws, until
nomading ends, and a home,
spiraled in calcium, appears.
A watery cosmos of green
awaits the refugee shell;
the sea is populated
by old dwellings, discarded
by molting crustaceans, spit out
for sand diggers and souvenir
hunters, strangled by a scarf
of seaweed or broken
with gravity’s axe, swung
by the long hand of the moon.
From Nomad’s End, 2010 Finishing Line Press
My Better Self
My good friend Mary Fletcher (in cahoots with my secret-keeping husband Eric) painted my portrait. It was a Christmas surprise, but also a wonderful celebration of the end of the year, the beginning of the new year, and especially our friendships and love of art. It’s also a never ending birthday gift. As strange as it is to see myself in paint, it’s been wonderful to reflect on what it means to be seen through other’s eyes and to see Mary’s generosity come through in her work.
The painting is richly textured, warm and cool, delicate and bold, subtle and bright. Mary painted the image from the author photo I’ve been using, but chose a completely unique color palette, which I love. The painting takes on a life of her own, one that I’m honored and humbled to be connected to. Thank you Mary.
The True Weight
West Highland Way, August 2011; a little tough, a little glorious
The True Weight
We make a list of all our favorite moments—
best hikes, finest meals— skipping
over the hard parts—when boots filled
with muck and rain froze our hands
and spun through the plastic
of our water-proof coats, each cursed step
you suffered through pain without ever
surrendering to sighs. Cataloging
the singular bluebell doesn’t really
tell the whole story. The tiny tear-shaped
flower pressed between “A Dream” and
“Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald”
in the pages of Robert Burns
does not relate the true heft of that volume—
the pages, browned and frayed, turn easily
one at a time but bound together
they hold the true weight of the poet’s words.
So too, yellow broom and wood sorrel
decorating the ascent through Glen Nevis
or the heather spilling lavender toward
the modest peak of Bien Inverveigh
can never be summarized
in one sprig of tiny rainbow blooms.
From Four Blue Eggs, Homebound Publications, 2014
Backwards and Forwards
Happy New Year
After the Ball Drops
Only in winter do you really think
about hummingbirds, especially at new year
when flying backward and forward
and hovering at the mouths of spring flowers
is the only way to make it through the snow.
Rusting
From Four Blue Eggs
Please add Homebound Publications to your list of stops for holiday shopping. Winter Sale–25% off! Finish 2015 off with a book in your lap.
How to Say Goodbye
The eighth month buzzes
through lichen days, dry
and hot; mud pools sweat
from the long-ago decadence
of rain and frogs plop like ice cubes
into this imagined summer drink.
Badges of mica shimmer
in the sun-bathing rocks
and the thirsty earth sends
missionaries—brown mosses
crunching underfoot; leaves
absorbing the prism, reflecting
the short, electromagnetic
waves we have come to call
green, and grasses turning
now, slightly away as if
to say, enough, spreading
chlorophyll cylinders
to catch a dreamed of
rain drop. Even crickets
sing with parched voices;
their constancy interrupted
by an intermittent hiccup;
small bow legs pause to rest
and then return to syncopation.
It’s too hot for human flesh:
our scales have fallen off,
and our naked, unprotected cells
do not photosynthesize.
We are much like sticks
fallen from hardy oaks,
vulnerable to the breakage
of heat. But there are promises, too
here in this parched world:
of shelter, protection, the sip
of a cool night, the awe of witnessing
something of change; promises
of relief if only we hang on until
our reddest moment, after we’ve turned
everything to sugar and can let go
knowing winter’s white can hold us.
Amy Nawrocki 