First the first bees of spring collecting nectar from the grape hyacinth that are blooming, then…
photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Category Archives: Ethel Mortenson Davis
The Bread Maker
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
She had forgotten
how to make the bread,
how it had to feel
just right
before she laid it down
to rest.
She had forgotten
how to walk and talk
until
the old nurse came
to her at midnight
and pulled her
from her nightmare dream,
doing the work
of a true healer.
She had to relearn
the little things,
the simple things—
like how to make bread:
how to make the bread dough
feel like a baby’s skin
when it is ready
to rest and do its work—
like a baby feels
when you lay it down
to sleep
to do its work
of growing.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Spring’s First Bee
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
The Doctor
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
He was the head
of Oncology,
a great mountain of a man
who wore a beautiful suit.
He greeted the young man
who was dying and his parents.
When the young man’s friends
went above the doctor’s head
to try to get him admitted
to another hospital,
for they loved the young man,
the doctor never came back
to check on the dying man,
but sent his assistant—
would not acknowledge the parents
when they saw him in the hallways.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
“It shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel” Genesis
a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
Great Canyon
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
“You must come.”
“No, not yet.”
“You have no choice.”
“But I must right something
in my life.
Wait till morning.”
“You have no more mornings
in your quiver.”
“Oh.”
“Now, let go
of the rim
of the Great Canyon.”
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Good Morning!
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
Rain
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
When the rarest
rain shower
finally comes to the desert
in early spring,
it softens the rocky soils,
soil that feels
like the ears of horses,
velvet and warm,
ears you want to kiss
or hold,
or the soft lips
of the work horse
who used to search
my deep pockets—
winter pockets–
for the carrot
or apple.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
The Message
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The Sierra mountains
are home to the Kogi,
descendents of the Tairona,
an indigenous tribe of Columbia.
In 1514 a Spanish Conquistador
stood on the shores of what now
is Columbia and said to the Tairona,
“I will kill everyone of you
and bring every bad thing upon you.”
Some Tairona fled
to the high Sierra mountains,
and there they have lived
for five-hundred years.
“We descendents of the Tairona
have a message
for Younger Brother.
“You, Younger Brother,
who never listens,
are cutting up the Great Mother,
cutting out her kidneys and intestines
by digging for minerals and oil
and cutting the forests down.
“You are bringing the world
to an end–it will go black.
We have been to the tops
of the Sierra’s and have seen
the glaciers disappearing.
All the rivers from these
are drying up,
and soon the people will die.
“The Tairona have taken care
of the earth, but you,
Younger Brother, are killing
the Great Mother,
even selling the clouds.”
copyright, 
White Ermine Upon Her Shoulders, 2011.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
