fourwindowspress

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

Wolf moon
 with yellow-green eyes,
 slipping between trees,
 slipping from heaven.
  
 Timber wolf
 with yellow-green eyes,
 slipping between trees,
 slipping between exploding bullets-
  
 heaven slipping between
 our fingers.

In Memory of Juno

Poem and pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis

 Dog
 The way you buried
 your nose in my hand
 made me unable to forget you
 that cold morning
 at daybreak.
  
 Skin and bones you were.
 Perhaps a boot to your neck,
 or starvation
 sent you fleeing to my gate,
 asking for help.
  
 So I let you in.

About Being Lost

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

 As a different species,
 you were there
 in the beginning,
 leading the toddler
 clinging to the long hairs
 on the ruff of your neck
 out of the vast corn field 
 and into the arms of frantic parents.
  
 Then, in midlife,
 you led us
 out of the western wilderness
 back to the road—
 how glad we were
 to find a way out.
  
 Now, in old age,
 you are disappearing
 from our lives—
 a little each day,
 as a new wilderness
 looms on our horizon.
  
 Who will lead us back 
 to the road now?

What Hope Is

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

I’ll tell you
 what hope is.
 It’s not going
 to the grocery store
 and getting yelled at 
 for bringing your
 screaming son along
 and then next week
 doing it again.
  
 It is breaking through
 the thick cloak that surrounds him
 and finding a small increment
 of communication,
 reaching down into
 the cylinder of autism
 and pulling out
 shafts of light.

An Artist that Uses the Color Blue

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

 The first pictures
 of the earth from space
 showed a blue and white jewel
 shining out of the blackness.
  
 It was like seeing
 patches of blue in the sky
 after a difficult storm,
 blue patches
 that gave us hope,
  
 or seeing rare blue flowers
 on an ancient forest floor,
 or the sparse blue iris —
 a surprise
 in the dry desert.
  
 Blue is the color of promise,
 the color of hope.

fourwindowspress

Heaven

In Memory of Juno

Our Winter

About Being Lost

Article Appearing in Nine Wisconsin Newspapers

What Hope Is

A Quiet Night

An Artist that Uses the Color Blue

October Sumac

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