Palm hands
applaud the wind
that brings
lost cloud ships
slowing
to toss extra weight overboard
Rocky hills
blush green from
unexpected rain
Shy poppies
bloom
in spite of themselves.
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To read Judith’s bio and more of her poetry on WIZ go here, here, and here.
*contest entry*
Beneath the ramble and catch
of tumbleweed: the lull of horizon
delicious with distance and elegy,
dead-ends and blue highways hoarse
with the whisper of wind, dust,
wood, bone, memory—the grist
of solitude stirred up
the morning you woke determined
to pluck the sun from God’s thigh
as he passed, full-stride,
over this side of town. That’s
how Jacob got new-named, you say
when the story comes [...]
On the warm late Spring shore, late
in a lunar glow,
he stood looking at the waves
trooping slowly, relentlessly into the cove
He stood wondering about the strings
of which some say he was made
Of what tidal forces were they drawn?
What sort of other moon forced him
into existence by its orbit around . . . what?
He placed his foot [...]
A robin arrived early spring with
snow on his breast and the
moon in his eyes heavier
than the moon in the sky.
He took his rest on my
gaunt apple tree and
the robin’s winter melody
began to haunt me, he
sang every day for twelve
days and on each day
an apple grew. I watched
him from the window.
The moon in my eyes
escaped with [...]
(after reading “Deer in the City” by Patricia Karamesines)
Deer rise up from the page
Like the walls of stone houses from the Mesa
As we top a rise on our drive across the Mesa
A few years after fire drove across
Uncovering new pots, new sites
The stone houses uncovered old memory
Older than the 40-odd years I have longed for [...]
Come slip between atmospheres of memory.
Knead yourself into cumulus—your airline ticket,
your pushbike, your liahona—with fingers like
the fingers of Doré’s sun. Sift marrow
until you feel soil part, feel the fern press its head
through mist then flatten against sudden emptiness.
Until you can roam sky without tripping on God’s
hem, can cloak in light
without singeing every shadow to ash, [...]
A lone pelican lands on the slough
beside the barn–
a gawkish bird gliding
onto the murky water,
a flap and beating of wings–
then, a hump of white feathers suspended,
the long orange bill tucked
against his chest.
Pelicans usually stay in large groups
like a carnival of white and orange,
a noisy bunch on parade
content with no less than a feast.
Their feats can [...]
We drink the same water the dinosaurs drank
–News Item
That one up there, towards the top, Camarasaurus
That skull provided the first evidence dinosaurs could hear
We found a complete set of ear bones
–David Whitman, Dinosaur National Monument, quarry building
The climate was much like it is today, he said
I imagine them by the river
Eating grass and deciduous leaves, [...]
An owl in spring smuggles moonlight
within the cowl of his
flight, sits on my roof,
replays his haunts from
the night before. Dreams
and I part, panels on
the roof drink sunlight,
the owl collects his cache
of sunlight that will
fire the flight of
his dreaming incarnation.
Will he dream of me in a
future reverie? That night,
I dream in silver and gold
I have a [...]
I never knew you held a rosary
of lilies in your heart, or meadows filled
with songbirds in your hand, that chirped and trilled
into the night. I could not sense the sea,
or brimming emerald pools that filled your days
and buoyed you up, when morning could not find
one star. Your quiet life is intertwined
with jasmine flowers, washed in [...]