[I was and then I wans't] or [You were not and then you were]

sword, that is what came to me when
the grass parted and the dirt shone thru
like a dark glass from which the green
shot through -- atlantic sliver and the slough
where no bridge wandered. we wondered
and then we were the same. always, the change
teethed on ice and snow, the wood rocked
and the rope we held wearing our hands
into the water. now we are sinking in it.

Shake me out, or at least say
you were the one who started it.

thinking of you

organ's eyes

doing the galleys for womb. so grateful to all the contributors. in awe of the komodo dragon.

solstice

one of my favorite days of the year. today we released another pelican. it is so thrilling when they open their wings in that wide space and it is for the first time in weeks, sometimes more. the sea was all silvery and the waves made little wooden xylophone-y noises over the rocks. I wanted to go swimming. we saw a seal, too. just a dark spot bobbing through the waves. k lent me her binoculars so i could see the pelican out in the water just beyond the wavebreak. then there were four white egrets down the beach.

this morning there was a dead mouse in the water dish of the dove's aviary. perhaps only an inch or two long, eyes open. it must have drowned trying to get out. the doves were oblivious. also, there was a blue heron in the parking lot. it must have been over four feet tall. just standing there, near the road even. and i heard people are calling the paper here. they want to know why the cormorants are starving. what happened to all the fish.

also there was a rare duck -- i forget it's name. small, docile. it had to be hand fed and it took me several tries to figure out how to hold it on my lap and put the fish in its narrow serrated beak. i'm finally getting over my timidity when I hold the birds. their feathers are so strong -- when a finger slips through i worry that it hurts them -- it's just an automatic reaction. like i have to remember that it is okay that i'm holding this wild thing.

o

where i went was with you
it could be anywhere

string and stair, the unlaced church
of greenhouse stakes and vines --

the salt and sommer, some
where divided by lakes lost

to sprawling fibers, unshuttered
and unwide, my mouth

becomes an eye-- 0

The Wild

Torn, I have my mother's bones
to remember the knaved shallow
made by the shells gathered
in our nets. The nets
were wived, woven
from a husband's shed skin.

{ } To them, we gave
the inside gleam the cat's
licked clean, the shinned
rope twirled by tongues.
Hived city under
the coved combs, the fish
who gave our hems
their glimmer -- these teething
shovels, without hands.

pOeTrY mEmE

tagged by secret mint --

*The first poem I remember reading was...

Emily Dickinson's "I'm nobody/ who are you"

*I was forced to memorize numerous poems in school and...

I was not forced to memorize "poems" but I went to Catholic school for grades 1-3.5 (we moved mid-year) so I had to learn prayers like "Hail Mary" and "Our Father" and all sorts of songs for mass.

I also had to learn monologues from R&J, Macbeth, Hamlet, and JC in High School.


*I read poetry because...

I hate sentences. At least today. I much prefer scattered text and line breaks to sentences and paragraphs. The sentence makes me feel uncomfortable and like I am waiting for something to be over.

Okay. I don't hate the sentence. But I do like broken things. And music. And shapes. some of the reasons I read poetry.

*A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem...

ED's "My life had stood -- a loaded gun --"

*I write poetry, but...

I watch lots of tv and read trashy magazines.


*My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature...

I guess I do it in smaller, more frequent doses.

*I find poetry...

lately I'm really into random marks made by waves or wind. also graffiti. and crossword puzzles.

*The last time I heard poetry...

I listened to ghostface killah today on the grammaphone mp3 blog

*I think poetry is like...

an undoing

or memorizing backwards

or a shovel that isn't big enough

Rehabilitated Pelican Goes Back to the Wild

sorry it's a little wobbly!

Birds

I found out that the bird I've been hearing at night is the killdeer. It took me a long time because I was certain that this bird was nocturnal, but I guess the killdeer likes to hang out at all hours. Like me.

I really like plovers. I'm thinking of doing the snowy plover docent program. It is very close to our house, and I don't think I've ever seen anything cuter than a snowy plover chick.

check it:

that picture is from Callie Bowdish. If you want a better idea of where we live, her pictures are totally rad.

I am happy

happy

s_lips (pt 1 of many mores)

cut up

blood orange &gravity
no more I'm
you, no
a fabric sphere, red
blown

{wind-weeds shocked
by absence lost
to wing-locked flocks}
killdeer killdeer killdeer


moss soft, mouth
wound/wound
what clocks tick here
fleshless bulb, foolish grower

the bowl

a place where I had no hips, only
two twigs fused together with glue.

gutters rushing crimson. eyelet
underwound, scrimmed twine

where there was a spool. Winter.
the blind that is not unseeing, not

....
held wool. no hands. only glasses
littered with snow. Two twigs

tied in a bow, around which
there is a blue

i did not know

and than i did

boom, you connived your way

shutter-wrecked, the sail-slips
slope the very pony you rowed -- wore
all the way in, for uses otherwise untooled.

mistle or rune, I knew only the marks
were similar to those we towed
in school. screw let loose
to form towers, bowing
our buttons
all the way home

kari edwards

Sad news. Poet, artist, and gender activist kari edwards died of heart failure on saturday. kari was only 52.

the first issue of womb is dedicated to kari edwards. kari was the first person to send poems for the journal. the poems that appear in womb are from her book having been blue for charity.

one cannot read kari's work without being changed by it. this is very great loss. I never met kari, but I consider hir one of my heroes. I wish all who knew and loved hir comfort.

x