How to regain your sanity
Come down to Mill Creek on a hot
afternoon, midges swarming
around your sweat-slicked face.
Dip your toes in water
off Mt. Lassen’s flanks,
turn off your phone.
Above, the south breeze ruffles alders,
swallows loop and spin by the bridge.
It was this way when Indians camped here,
ground their acorns, cooled their seared skin.
Your world grows wide, mind lifts
in a dance among wild wings
and then settles with a grace note of thanks
back in your loose body.
(after ‘How to regain your soul’ by William Stafford)
House on the Edge of the Bay
Mist tasting of salt gathers on our lips,
seeps through spars in the Charleston marina,
across the narrow road, against our doorstep,
into the house. Smudges the edges
of spruce and fir, turns them
into a Japanese painting. Softens
the clatter of gull, croak of crow,
sea lion bark. Like a mermaid
sliding off her rock, the day falls
into the harbor, rides the outgoing tide
as a fishing boat, late homing,
slips past the jetty. Spaced lights
of the marina prick through gloom.
Outlined in white glow
from stern to bow, flag to waterline,
the boat sails before our dazzled eyes
across the front yard.
Sunset Prowling
Light shifts into crimson bars
across indigo sky,
fades as the moon rises.
If you still
your twitching thoughts,
you may hear the quiet pad
of prowling feet.
In full dark the rush of wings
ruffles your hair
and one small scream
signals the owl’s dinner.
Even after you’ve gone to bed
feet pad and prowl
under your window.
Published in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2009
Well
I dive down my neighbor’s new well
headfirst, an arrow flight,
arms like fletched feathers
tucked to my side.
I fly through stiff pasture grass
and rich Vina loam, rub noses
with a velvety mole in passing.
At a rock pile, clay-packed
river cobbles in a bed three feet thick,
my body-shaft twists and bends,
finds a path around spheres of granite.
Kicking free I drop deeper,
scrape my forehead against the black mantle
of a lava field that once covered the earth.
Chipping a trail through the frozen fire,
I spiral and tumble in free fall
eighty feet down to an underground river.
Rub toes against the sueded round stones of its floor.
Upstream a waterfall roars,
a low-pitched chant drums in my ears.
Ozone fizzes my cells with blue light.
Water seeps into the fibers
of my scarred body.
My feather-limbs unfold, spread
and support me.
I float under lava’s distant gleam,
know I will find my way back
when the underground river
sings my name again.
Published in Verseweavers, 2007
Living things
I never did learn their earthy names,
the body parts, short hairs or feathers,
what the part underground is called,
or the crown of leaves brushing the sky.
I never learned what the natives call them
or the Latin biological term
but my eyes learned early
to worship their color and form,
my ears are in love with their voices,
and my nose relishes scents
from wild garden to barnyard.
Published in East Valley Times, Palo Cedro, CA 2008
Emu
Feathers fluffed
behind the black hides
of steers fattening for market
the only emu
left from a rancher’s unsound dream
roves the field
tiptoes over lava rocks
scans the rising distance
for her mate
Published in BlackWidow’s Web, 2005
Long past midnight
Full-moon paws through the sycamores
lays shadows on dry grass
I pick my way barefoot
along a path of star-shine
Cicadas silenced, scrub jays asleep
only the whoosh of heavy wings
signals the great horned owl
The back of my neck prickles
A sudden shriek tells its own story
a creature caught
between supper and safety
Branches shiver in gusts of wind
patterns sliver in black and white
my sense of direction fractures
Over my left shoulder
the owl’s low-voiced treble
hastens me home
Published in M Review, Spring 2006
Making a myth
I live my own American myth
stand with opaline eyes
in the bow of the boat
Orcas race toward me
leaping
through shallow waves
Arcs flash black and white
above Rosario Strait
as if launching
the whales into flight
then swoop under the boat
Emerge bounding
on the other side
Long after the pod fades from sight
and we moor in calm brackish waters
my heart speeds
with the orcas
looping the San Juan Islands
Published in Rattlesnake Review, 2005
Lost Creek
-- watercolor by Richard Hazelton
Rocks jagged as a giant’s broken teeth
thrust through waves
crowned by a swirl of gulls
Wings flash white-silver against gray cloud
slip sideways, vanish in diffused light
Breasting the sea the fissured cliff
from which the rock broke eons ago
threaded by Lost Creek
its fern grottoes, cedars fragrant in mist
Where waves crash a crescent of sand
holds glimmering water-slicks and footprints
Tiny humans daubed in red and blue
amble at the bottom corner
as significant in this painting
as they are to the storm-tossed sky
Published in The Raintown Review, Spring 2006
Montana History
Bundled in her cloth coat,
red scarf wrapped three times
around her neck, she shivers
on the corner of downtown Helena.
The ceremony,
accompanied by feet
stamping off the chill,
flushes her wrinkled cheeks
with pleasure. The last
living memory
of the Jewish temple
long covered, absorbed,
is contained like a scroll
inside her frail body.
At 90—amazed, amused—
the honored star of the show
smiles at the ears turned her way
for stories she thought
she’d forgotten.
Eyes sparkling brighter
than the frost on the trees
she spins tales of the 1880s
in front of the synagogue
her peddler grandfather
helped to build.
© Copyright Patricia Wellingham-Jones. All Rights Reserved.
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