by Ethel Mortenson Davis
He has taken
his dinner with delight,
relishing each morsel,
tasting each bite
by rolling it
on his tongue.
He mouths the words,
forming them
on his lips,
smiling,
as he escapes
to his world —
the one called ecstasy.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Four Windows Press has published a new chapbook, The Healer, by Ethel Mortenson Davis:
These are powerful poems about healing and the human spirit by an imagistic poet of the first order. The book can be purchased for $10, via check or through PayPal to paypal.me/fourwindowspress, which covers all postage and handling. The Galleria Carnaval in El Morro, New Mexico, http://www.galleriacarnaval.com, also has copies at the gallery for sale. The address for checks is: Four Windows Press, Ethel Mortenson Davis, 231 N Hudson Ave., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235. If you use PayPal please let us know by email, sending us your address, at http://www.davisetheltom@gmail.com.
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
a sonnet from the Waterkeeper’s sonnet cycle
The old man stood inside the freezing dark
And watched the Indians in their makeshift camp.
He felt his age, an ancient patriarch
Who’s seen too much of living hard to tamp
The rage he felt into a discipline
The oilmen in their fancy suits and ties
Embraced each time their spokesmen put their spin
Upon the outrage in the Indian lies
That let them dance and sing and carry on
Their protests as the winter iced men’s blood
And civilization turned into a pawn
Of waterkeepers dredged from river mud.
Our Mother Earth, he sneered, then turned away.
The Law will win, he thought, and have its say.
Note: The Waterkeeper’s Sonnet Cycle is in honor of the protestors in North Dakota who are enduring harsh winter weather while still keeping their protest going. This is the second sonnet in the cycle published here.
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Heaven
An astronaut that repaired
the Hubble spacecraft
said recently
that when he stepped out
on his first spacewalk
and saw the lighted
blue and white earth
underneath him,
he knew
he was looking
at heaven.
I wonder how
we would have thought
of the land, the animals,
and the people
if we would have known
our earth was heaven?
If this was all the heaven
there will ever be?
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography, Poetry
a sonnet by Thomas Davis
They danced, and then they sang, and on the plains
The winter came as men with guns and eyes,
That hated who they were, looked half insane
And tried to stop their dance and song, the pain
Engendered by the cold, their fears, dark skies,
Brave words that had the force of hurricanes.
But in the deepness of our Mother Earth,
The dance and song of waterkeepers stirred
An earth song, water song, a shining birth
Of human visions that were not deterred
By guns and eyes and human anger spurred
Alive by those whose sense of human worth
Could never see the dance or hear the earth-deep song
The drum-heart beats and beats all winter long.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
“I run because it is my culture.”
“My father is not there for me
because he is a drunk.”
“The runners with me
are my family.”
“My culture says that I must greet
the sun by running.”
“I think about my future
when I am running.”
“I think about what my life
is going to be.”
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Thomas Davis
I sit upon the rocky lakeshore, waves
Long, curving lines that sweep and sing their music
Into the rhythms of my thoughts, their cryptic,
Moon-driven spirit a metaphor that graves
Itself into the thought that strikes me, raves
Unchecked into a day so wind-blown, gray,
It makes me wonder why the disarray
I feel inside seems dark, a chasmal cave.
Then, suddenly, I see the waves as souls
That sweep into a shore that no man sees,
And as they chant into the beach, the shoals
Of rocks become a shore of certainties,
An incantation on the shore, their canticle
Eternity, immersion mystical.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Thomas Davis, Uncategorized
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The earth dresses in
the cloak of humanity,
but it does not fit.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
As old men sink into their silence, words
Become entangled in the memories
And moments that are like a flock of birds
So dense in time and space they start to freeze
The meanings that an old man means to say,
Or be, or clarify to those who’d listen
As if he still had thoughts that might convey
Some sense beyond the silence of his person.
Inside the living room I watch his eyes.
I feel inside myself and try to hear
The silence as its heaviness denies
Old age’s bucketful of pains and fear —
And as I watch I know the old men in their silence,
Their frozen faces and their look of patience.
Filed under poems, Poetry, Published Books
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
We were hoping
to catch a glimpse of
the one who made this place,
a summer home
by the water.
We wanted to see him or her,
but we keep missing him.
Perhaps if we rise
early in the morning
when it is still dark
we will glimpse this one.
Or if we delay in the evening,
when the summer light
lays on our shoulders
for endless hours,
we will see the builder.
I know he or she has left gifts everywhere,
like the pile of stones
at the water’s edge.
It is a masterful display
of color and size,
each one shiny
from the motion of water,
a universe within itself.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
fourwindowspress 