a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Category Archives: Ethel Mortenson Davis
Mourning Dove
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
How Hard
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
We talked about children,
their schooling,
their boyfriends.
How they are becoming
serious about their relationships.
We talked about children
becoming people.
How hard it is.
We talked about
how hard creating
a new piece of art is.
How much energy
the making of art takes —
an extraordinary piece of art.
How hard that is:
Like the yellow orchid
in the forest this morning
among the blue waters.
How hard the earth struggled
to bring about that flower:
Like my ancestors
that were sailors,
sailing to other lands —
among the blue waters —
how hard.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Door
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
There,
in the bright morning,
hepatica,
whose leaves stay alive
under the dead layer
all winter,
send up flowers
before all others.
It is here where
the pale pink and lavender
are the door opening
to where my god lives:
Her angels are the birds
opening their wings.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Publications
Ethel and I continue to have success at getting poems published. We both had poems in this year’s Wisconsin Poets Calendar: http://www.wfop.org/poets-calendar-1/2016-poets-calendar. We got our copies when we went to the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets fall convention in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend. Door County Living Magazine released an article Gary Jones, a fine poet in his own right who had a poem in the last release of the Blue Heron Review that also included a poem by Ethel, wrote at https://doorcountypulse.com/spirits-born-light-poet-tom-davis. At the end of the article the magazine published a Miltonian sonnet I wrote called “Cherry Orchard.”
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis, Uncategorized
Flight
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In memory of Donald Sharp and Rumi
Was it the spring stream,
flowing out of the escarpment
tumbling, bubbling over fallen birch trees?
Or was it the large, sloppy snowflakes
falling in the spring morning’s forest,
as trees held their breath,
held their breathing
for the sun to overtake the cold,
that made my wings open and close,
readying me to take flight?
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Mallard Ducks at the Backyard Feeder In a Snowstorm
photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography, Uncategorized
House of Tomato Post of Thomas and Ethel Mortenson Davis’s Green Bay Reading
The House of Tomato website, developed by Tori Grant Welhouse, one of Wisconsin’s most important poets, a graduate of Antioch University London, and the Vice President for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets in northeast Wisconsin, has posted a podcast from the poetry reading Ethel and I did in Green Bay on Thursday at the Reader’s Loft Bookstore. The website address is http://www.houseofthetomato.com/march for those who might be interested.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis, Uncategorized
Ladies Need Fur Coats
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
She went to the great black first,
then the bay.
She had carrots
in one of her coat pockets.
“Which pocket?” she asked.
Their soft muzzles always
found the right one,
happy to munch the carrots.
Then one day
the black was gone,
his stall cleaned out,
and shovels put in his place.
“Where’s Dick?” she asked.
“He went to the fox farm because
ladies need fur coats,” he said.
The bay remained for
a number of years,
sleeping in the winter sun
with his head too low to the ground.
Then one day the bay too
was gone,
his great body and his work
folded into the fields
outside his window.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry, Uncategorized
Barn Owl
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Uncategorized
Northwest Cedars
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The trees whisper.
He will not lay us low
with the blade,
or render us invisible
with the axe —
So we will light his way
with birds,
music to titillate
his broken heart.
We will get the white bear
to lay salmon at our feet,
streams overflowing
with the red fish.
He believes
he is kin to us
as he climbs
the rocky cliffs
and looks out
across the valley,
exchanging chemicals
with us
like human beings
exchanging pheromones.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry, Uncategorized
fourwindowspress 