Listen to Patricia reading “The Pear Tree.”
When early autumn’s storm wrung from the clouds
Summer, wearing the last thundering rain thin
And sharp on the wind’s rasp; when thorns
Of the first frost bloomed over the grass,
And the morning glory hung brown and bitten
On the garden fence; on those first nights
Of cold window glass and the drip of [...]
In my dream, people mill at a fair, trying things they’ve never before done. There’s horseback riding on flashy steeds and archery with brightly fletched arrows.
At the fair’s farthermost edge, wings rest upon the green. Their colors—kite colors—catch at me. I cross the field whispering, I’ve always wanted to try this! An attendant helps me [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
“Why do dragons keep maidens,” she asked,
“Not killing or eating them? Why hoard
Them in caves and sleep while foolish maidens
Weep, wringing jewelry and dabbing pale
Gowns at their eyes? It can bring no real pleasure.
Fell Dragon stokes inwardly its wizard fire
While Fair Maiden strums her lyre, lamenting
Yon Burnt Hamlet from whence she came.”
She [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
On the east rim the fire rose blossoms,
Its pink-gold tongues
Blushing rock and sand,
Licking up night’s tinajas.
In sand grains beneath me,
The coolness of stars—
Those winking violets
That glamour the shadow.
My face
Inclines to the light.
Hands soften, spread—
Blood blooms.
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Originally published in Glyphs III: Poems and Stories of the Colorado Plateau, Moab Poets and Writers Inc. Regional [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
Blake’s angel, for all his winks and nods,
Wouldn’t have it, though it hangs for having:
Drop of down and blush quavering on the rim
Of ripeness, playing at a fall.
Pendant at the tip of a branch astray
From the greater fruited spray
Where sister peaches cluster meekly
Beneath green custom, this one sweet dangle
Trespasses air my side [...]
Chin on sandstone
She turns her head to see
The sky running toward her—
The last sun on the last water.
Who can count the knots in the braid?
Through the cottonwoods
Mourning doves’ blue ballads purl:
Coo-ahh, hoo-hoo-hoo.
Day lifts from the mesa.
Stars bloom unevenly:
White hyacinths
Through pewter snow.
She stands to go
Where friends have grown a fire.
At a bend she startles a [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
Low morning, and low light.
Past years’ leaves edge under the ivy.
A brown thrush
Mentions the flowering pear
And the box turtles coupling
In the grey shade of white oaks.
The moss is warm; the air, fern moist;
A bright fox
Walks in the stream.
The thrush tells it,
Leaping from one branch to another,
Going down deeper into the greenbriar.
by P. G. Karamesines
Mountains and evening: aspen leaves
Pale as moth wings,
Reclaiming the wood.
The car clove spring.
A flock of yellow petals, heads hung—
I wanted to stop,
But seeing you, said nothing.
You were not much in your face,
Your words, better remembering
Some breathtaken childhood
On this exalted road.
On the peaks, winds blew
Clouds to dust
In parching cold.
We rode through green flush [...]
by P. G. Karamesines
Like swallows, each one shapes its path
On the other’s—two horses, maybe yearlings,
So alike in color and conformation
My eye exchanges them as they run.
It’s what they are together my eye
Singles out: twins of movement.
They stop and box the air between them,
Swinging skulls like stiff-armed fists.
They roll apes’ lips to shake formidable
Teeth and lift [...]