THREE POEMS BY SUSAN RICH
Searching Out Teepee Circles
~
It’s the second night we’ve come searching
and this time brought a map; found
psilocybin mushrooms, white tailed deer
and one jack rabbit. The alfalfa is all in bloom
and sagebrush deepens the air. The sky
a pink and gold fabric ~ when the stones
finally appear. Yep, the size of your average
teepee, Phillip brightly declares. But it’s Jason
who leads the way home; and one by one
we head to the depot ~ singing our souls off to bed.
Almost There, 5 AM
We wake early to watch the sunrise.
Walk route 195, with cups of coffee in hand.
Our bodies still tumbled by sleep.
In polka dots, pink plaids, and solids,
we are pajama beauty queens, delighted
by
Golnar demands a picture, her smile
assures this babe anything. Whatthefuck?
she says; as Laura captures the cloudscape
with her consummate word: Amazing. What must
the cowboy see as he stumbles along
the highway ~ as a constellation of women
climb into the sky ~
each alive in her own vision ~
each a prophet ready to die ~
After Watching A Sky of Trumpeter Swans and Snow Geese
Today there’s nothing but this embrace
of world ~ winsome
and warm as a blank page,
a story’s sun-dried sheets.
Today I’m thrown into
a sky of snow, in narrative
circles, white psalms;
under fields emptied of crops
and knowing; what holds us
here, enraptured ~
klow wow, klow wow, klow wow?
May our desire rise like
notes from the crusts
of homemade pies.
May the tempo
hold like trumpeter swans
or snow geese ~ a forward
March formation, aural sash
of silk and grace.
In other words,
let my pleadings be
a pleasure to hear; a
Morse code of small requests.
Attentive lover, cash to spare, another Northwest year.
4 comments:
Thank you for posting these Sharman. "Almost Home" and "Searching for Teepee Circles" were written while in residence at the Ucross Foundation. My first experience of seeing actual tumbleweed - although I don't think that made it to the poems.
Susan Rich, What a wonder to read your work. I can see why you've been to Ucross--you see in a way that opens my eyes. Thank you.
Thanks, Susan, for sharing these three poems. They added a measure of grace to my day, a deepening of this particular moment, moment of walking at 5 a.m. with a constellation of women, alive in my own vision, a prophet ready to die.
And such lovely images in After Watching a Sky! I felt my own desire rise, my own pleadings a pleasure, the freshness of this morning's summer rain at my house made fresher by your words.
It is the greatest pleasure of writing poems to know that my words have touched someone else so deeply. Thank you both ~ Susan
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