In remembrance of a dear friend.
Arrowheads -for Bowdie When all we had were hands and eyes and time-- I remember the curve of your back as you bent to the ground searching for them. I didn’t believe anything could be found so easily, until I found one: salmon colored, pale, imperfect and shiny, silent as the blackbrush above an ancient canyon. Some things are revealed when we least expect them: the glint of sunlight on an exposed edge or an orb of darkness nestled in white sand. Jagged edges leading to smooth hollows, thousand-foot cliffs abated abruptly by sand—define us. We are powerless confronted by their beauty. I still know nothing about you except the way you hide your eyes as though you could keep the arcane essence of your soul from spilling. The bats sense the stain of desert varnish seeping through your veins as well as anyone. It’s elemental: we cannot choose which things we love. First appeared in THE FOURTH RIVER, Autumn 06.
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Winter Rain
Slate blue light covers grey the dim red barn. Sheaths of gold corn, frayed white in dusk, rattle. This winter rain, steady on the asphalt, melts sky to ground in puddles where I stand longing, cheeks pelted cold. Rusted withering leaf clutching still a naked branch, twists free. The empty color of love drips earthward. Appeared in THE AVOCET: A JOURNAL OF NATURE POETRY, Spring 07 Kit Foxes
-for M. Salamacha Step into the calm and move through, each moment enflamed with passion, feet bare on the earth like the paws of kit foxes in Art Canyon, eyes gleaming from the dark night, too curious and playful to run just yet. Greet each element with innocence, stalk whatever fascinates you, grant every being a respectful moment, then retreat again into the arms of all that is known. First published inTHE LYNX, 9/08 Friends tell me: You should Blog! But I would rather randomly post poetry. And since All Hallow's Eve is upon us, I'll begin by remembering the dead. ![]() Dead Horse Point Last night I dreamt of mountain lions running. Their steamy breath trailed me with the scent of survival. Was it the moon that brought them? Or the rain? Alone on the rim the hooves of phantom horses strike the slickrock behind me. There are others on the Kayenta: the murdered girl, her body never found; the hitchhiker, the boys struck by lightning, and the suicide, alone on a cliff watching the sun set one last time. The wind stirs them up. Their stories hang in the darkness like ornaments suspended on boughs of pinyon. They brush against me in sudden breezes and I turn, startled. I can’t pass that cliffrose near the Mormon tea and Bigelow’s sage without shivering. His face appears: eyes closed, fingertips motionless, body rigid. The man with the blue face is dying. He lays there still, another ghost to haunt the cliffs. Each night supine breath stopped short. Or was it the singing of coyotes? I crawled from sleep to the door and stepped into silver shadows. Etched in red mud, cat print. Behind me, the muffled breathing of horses. First published by WILDERNESS WATCHER, 7/2004, Volume 15 |
AuthorEvery now and again, heidi elizabeth blankenship will post a little poetry. Enjoy! Archives |