by Ethel Mortenson Davis
In winter
sleigh bells went around
the bellies of the black and bay,
four velvet ears ahead of us,
jingle bells on black harnesses.
It was in deep snow
when all was quiet
and the horses began to trot
that magic began to happen,
when erythematic music
of a prancing, running march
through forested land
filled the air,
prancing feet
touching down into our hearts.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
A ballad by Thomas Davis
“It is hard to follow one great vision in this world of darkness and of many changing shadows. Among those men get lost.”
― Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks
“Not far from Big Skylight and Four Windows Caves,
across fields of aa lava, loose, rough, sharp, flecked with green and orange lichen,
in darkness so absolute light becomes a memory,
blind dragons live beside an underground river”
— Thomas Davis, Inside the Blowholes
One day and night, three days and nights,
He sat inside the earth
And stared at winter’s cold, bright skies
Awaiting spring’s rebirth.
Inside his heart an awful dread
Quaked through each day’s long hours,
His mind’s shade stirring strange,
Malevolent, dark powers.
At sixteen years he should have been
Alive to all life held,
But in the windswept wilderness
He sat alone, compelled
To wait for promises that hung
Suspended in the air —
As foreign to his wish for life
As ghosts of grizzly bears.
Then, with the rising of the moon,
As puffs of glittering snow
Flowed ghostly over coal-black stones,
A trance began to flow
Like water over who he was,
His dreaming powerful
Enough to give him second sight,
A world turned beautiful.
And from the east he saw them flying,
Great beasts with whirling eyes,
Bright wings, long necks outstretched, their bodies
Dark in cold, night skies.
Inside his cave his vision thundered songs
As beasts as large as hills
Flew straight toward his hiding place,
Then flared their wings, a shrill
Bewailing shivering alive
The silver moon, the stones,
The night-time universe,
His fragile frame of human bones.
“Beware! Beware!” His spirit wailed.
“We’re dragons,” said huge minds
Inside his mind. “We’re all that’s left
Of ancient dragonkind.”
He tried to cringe back in his cave,
But as the dragons sank
Their claws in earth and slowly walked
Past where he hid and shrank
From heads and bodies nightmare-huge,
He felt how sadness filled
The night and twisted who he was,
His boyhood murdered, killed
By creatures that could not be real,
By sadness from a trance,
By loss much greater than the loss
Of humans from life’s dance.
The dragons passed him in the night,
Came to a cave so huge
It seemed to swallow dragons whole
Into a centrifuge.
As dragon after dragon went
Beneath volcanic ground,
He held his breath and prayed and prayed
He’d not be seen nor found.
At last a single dragon paused
Before the mawing dark;
She seemed to sigh before she left
The night, a matriarch
Who did not want to leave the world
For life inside old fires
Long ossified to rock and sure
To end her life’s desires.
And as she paused she turned and saw
Him huddled in his cave.
Her eyes whirled fire and made him quake
While trying to be brave.
She made no sound, but stared at him
Until, his heartbeats wild,
He crawled into the night
And stood, a frightened human child
Inside the gaze of dragon eyes
That bored into his heart
And stripped him of humanity,
His spirit rived apart.
The dragon snorted, sending fire
Into the nighttime air.
He stood and forced his eyes to match
The dragon stare for stare.
The world seemed poised upon a brink
Where revelations stormed,
But then the dragon turned from Seer,
Child, leaving him forlorn.
Inside the moment when the dragon
Turned, left him once again
Alone, his hair turned white; he aged
And grinned an old man’s grin.
He kept the dragons’ secret safe
And lived a hundred years,
A man apart, a man so strange
He had no sense of fear.
Filed under poems, Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
Ethel’s poem, “Cold”, has been published by Poetry Breakfast this morning. Poetry Breakfast emails one poem a day to subscribers. It publishes some of the finest and most accomplished poets being published today. You can see Ethel’s poem at: https://poetrybreakfast.com/category/all-poems, the site’s web page. I hope you’ll find time to go to Poetry Breakfast this morning.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry, Uncategorized
poem by Ethel Mortenson Davis
We walked Michigan’s shore
against gale winds,
blue-green water
churning up white foam
and throwing large rocks
at our feet
until a stand of cedars
offered warmth and stillness
from the wind.
Leaf-litter
lined the forest floor, softness,
respite from our difficult world.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
I was seven years old.
Mom insisted I was too sick to play an old man in a fake gray beard,
but I had worked hard to memorize my school play’s lines.
I was so sick I could hardly get out of bed.
I got up anyway, dressed in old man clothes
Mom had stitched out of Dad’s cast-off pants and shirts
and walked out of the house through darkened streets to Delta Elementary.
Back stage I half fainted when I saw
the auditorium packed with kids, parents, and grandparents.
Other kids and our teacher just accepted that I was there.
Feverish, I feverishly repeated lines over and over in my head
and fought my stomach’s queasiness.
Then the play about pioneering, wagon trains, and wilderness began.
When my turn came I walked teetering, the way I was supposed to, on stage.
My Mom had no idea where I was.
An old man, I sat on a stool covered with a painted cardboard stump,
voice quavering as if I was sixty years old and not just sick.
When I finished the audience broke into thundering applause.
I bowed quickly, went off-stage, down ancient wooden stairs,
and went outside where the Milky Way flowed light toward the horizon.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The sailor
understands
the power of the wind,
adjusts his sails
to capture it.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
We stepped off
the edge of the world today,
blue above us,
blue below us,
nothing but sky and water
around us
until
death’s door
surprised us.
Not yet.
Not yet.
This is still not
yet our time.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I’ve come to lie
my head again in your lap
this Wooly Bear morning:
Frost in the air,
the sky unbelievably blue,
the leaves red-orange.
I reach down and touch
The softness of the caterpillar’s
black and brown bands.
She quickly springs into a ball—
so strong, so resilient:
Strong enough to survive
90 below zero in arctic winters,
spinning a cocoon
and then in spring
turning into a Golden Isabella moth.
This strength is something
to take home with us
and rid our toxic relationships,
disregarding them like clothing
we let drop around our ankles
and step away from
with a new nakedness,
frankness,
ready to start building
new cocoons that turn us
into golden moths.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
To Ed DiMaio
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I must tell you
that sometime
when all is lost,
when there is
no more hope in the world,
the great cosmos,
the lovely universe,
puts on our path
a free spirit,
an angel of sorts,
or a person of faith —
and says,
“Here is your protector,
the one who will lift your soul up,
the one who has come
this evening to be your guide
to position yourself again
in the universe.”
And now he says,
“How comely you are,
how lovely your skin,
how grand your soul.”
Now you have your answer,
the answer to Hopelessness:
Unexpected grace.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
fourwindowspress 