by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The winter nights are best:
Her floors are swept
back and forth
and back again
with heaps of snow.
Her wind howls
like timber wolves
in some cold, inhuman land.
She’s almost thought
to be, in her heart, a beast,
But her snow
drifts too deep;
her wind blows too strong,
and weakness flees
the human heart again.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In the center
of our galaxy
the Milky Way,
a great black snake lives
and mesmerizes stars
so they will
get close enough
for her to swallow—
while, at the same time,
she gives birth
to new stars.
They come out of her
and go flying off
into the cosmos
as far as they can go
to escape
her clutches.
Copyright © 2011, White Ermine Across Her Shoulders
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In winter
a boy or girl could ice skate
up the branch
of Little Sandy Creek
as far as their strength could hold out
before the heavy snows of January
spoiled the ice.
It was here
they would dream
about who they would become,
about what they would do
with their lives
when they grew up—
before the willows
became too thick and
turned them back,
or when the shallow spots,
under the bridges,
with stones
would stop them.
Charlie could skate for miles
before he went home
to put steaming copper kettles
of water on his stove
to bend slats of wood
to make skis with curled ends
before the heavy snows of January and February
swept across us.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The monsoons
sweeten the bounty
of the high desert meadows.
Curious blossoms
burst out everywhere.
Green grass
carried in the bellies of horses
finally becomes enough.
Perhaps the monsoons
will not return next year.
Our earth is not a permanent habitat.
One day our sun will explode
and melt our earth.
It will not care for us forever–
like my dog knows instinctively
when I leave her in the driveway.
Perhaps I will not return.
Perhaps that means
the end of her.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
We have, over the life of fourwindowspress.com, presented poetry and essays about Continental Divide, New Mexico. It is a small place off Interstate 40 to the east of Gallup. The area has a variety of races and tribes, Navajo, Pueblo (especially Zuni and Acoma), Hispanics, people from the Middle East, and Anglos. The majority of the population are Native Americans. This photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis is taken just on the other side of the fence around our house looking southwest–more west than south, at sunset. You can see the Zuni Mountains behind the rabbit brush, sagebrush, juniper, cedar, and piñon trees. There are about 360,000 acres of pristine wilderness in the Zuni Mountains. What you cannot see in the photograph are the elk, mule deer, jack rabbits, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, black bears, grizzly bears, cattle, horses, coyotes, and dogs that sometimes make noises in the night that get our two wonderful dogs, Pax and Juneau, barking. This is only one angle from our house. The forest is thicker if you swing the camera lens just a little bit. From our second story you can see the red cliffs to the north and Mount Taylor, the area’s towering mountain rich in Navajo and Pueblo beliefs, to the east. We live in a wild, rural place that presents some challenges–we are sometimes without electricity or water for a day, but that also causes tourists to stop and get out their cameras.
Photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Essays, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I am going deep within myself,
to where gates no longer open,
but instead
walls are crossed upon walls
between the four directions.
Here is where the wolf
cannot penetrate again,
and the lion cannot eat my flesh.
Like some wounded animal
that crawls back to his source,
I am going deep within myself
to find the cool stillness.
I will not come out again
until my skin has thickened.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
John Hope Franklin
remembers
he and his mother
boarding a train
and getting on a white coach
by accident.
“They stopped the train
and threw us off.”
He was six years old,
crying and afraid,
but his mother told him
that he was as good
as anyone else
in the whole world,
and that he shouldn’t
waste his energy crying,
but instead use it
to prove his worth.
John Hope went on
to get a PhD from Harvard,
rewriting American-African history.
In 1934 he handed
Franklin Roosevelt a petition
against the Cordie Cheek lynching,
marched for civil rights
in Montgomery Alabama in 1965,
testified against Robert Bork’s
nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987,
and won the Medal of Freedom in 1995.
He recently said,
“when I reached 80 years old
I thought it would change,
but instead I’m insulted every day
of my life.”
Copyright © 2010, I Sleep Between the Moons of New Mexico
Notes: A “quiet lynching” is how Sheriff Claude Godwin described the hanging of Cord Cheek, a twenty-year-old African American. Cheek was accused of, but never indicted for, attacking an eleven-year-old white girl. When the Maury County,Tennessee grand jury refused to indict Cheek for the alleged attack, residents took matters in their own hands in 1933. Franklin’s testimony during the confirmation of conservative Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 helped lead to Bork’s failure to gain confirmation by the United States Senate.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a pastel and poem by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Song of Ecstasy
She is the sort that hears the song
the hills make after a heavy rain—
a humming sound one hears
first through the finger tips,
then the ears.
She’s the sort that dances with antelope at dusk,
playing in the field until dawn.
She’s the sort that makes the insect song—
not bell, nor click, but a rhythm in-between:
like the sound the silver pieces
sewn on her dress and leggings make,
a sound like wind and bell
as she makes her grand entry
in a circle around the village—
head held high,
her hair flowing behind her—
tasting the song of pure ecstasy
like honey on the tongue.
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I sleep
between the moons of New Mexico—
sunset and sunrise.
My bed is the yellow-ocher grasses
dotted with green juniper and piñon.
I am the summer sun climbing
from the life-giving phase
into the deadly phase–
like the rattlesnake,
deadly and life-giving,
that blends into the yellow grasses
as it careens along
the canyon’s face.
I cover myself
with the blue mountains,
with moon-like stars.
I am the spirit of wonderment.
I am a spell
upon every living being
in my path.
Copyright © 2010, I Sleep Between the Moons of New Mexico
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
fourwindowspress 