by Ethel Mortenson Davis
When I awake
I will not go to the theater,
play parts, do different characters,
but will be who I am.
I will never go back
to that again,
but will go where
there is wilderness and wildlife,
running water, and laps of waves—
See snorting deer.
I am my raw self;
I have no rifle,
and my bent toward you
is harmony.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Sonja Bingen, our daughter 
Filed under Art, Photography
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I have waited for the prodigal son to arrive,
looking across the line of hills each day,
hoping to see his cherub-like face again—
but they say he is still in a distant land,
throwing away his inheritance,
living a debauched life.
For he has no real needs, they say.
Not like the Russians
Pasternak, Ginsburg, Yevtushenko,
Solzhenitsyn,
men of needs and wants
who cherish their inheritance
and are called sons.
I am waiting for you to come back to life again,
waiting to take the fattened young bull
out of his pen to celebrate your return.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
Fionn, son of Mairne, a Chief Druid’s daughter, was instructed by the Druid…to cook for him a salmon fished for a deep pool…and forbidden to taste it; but as Fionn was turning the fish over in the pan he burned his thumb, which he put into his mouth and so received the gift of inspiration. For the salmon was a salmon of knowledge, that had fed on nuts fallen from the nine hazels of poetic art. Robert Graves, The White Goddess. 1966 (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), p. 75.
Upon the dark dolomite jutting
Shoreline out into lake waters,
Brooding, the poet pondered, rising
Vapors misting white where otters
Often twisted brown bodies in brightness
During days of lithesome lightness.
Longing to discover poetry’s essence,
Plunging into intensifying agony,
Its agitated angst and strange candescence,
Searching for wisps of hope, honey
Spirited into hazel nuts fallen
Into waters fused with wisdom’s pollen,
Praying, the poet chanted phrases
Empty of meaning, madness exploding
Dystopian dreams into glazes
Filming stratums in mist, imploding
Into a dance of time: Land distinct,
Shrouding tales of peoples long extinct.
Milky mist rose from the waters.
Paddling in a coracle, Fionn,
Singing softly as sleek otters,
Angled after salmon in an eon
Ever-ending, inspiration
Infusing words into desperation.
Dancing in the poet’s pounding
Heartbeat, language’s lilting incantation
Metamorphosed landscapes, people’s living,
Into a singing suffusion of creation:
Fionn spanning time and continents,
Salmon swimming past despair to resonance.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Come with me,
down where the trees are,
for there is a line of sky
without clouds,
and soon the earth
will be the color of red honey.
Come with me,
for there is enough feed
for the horses,
and when we stop to sleep
we’ll keep the dogs close
to warm us.
Come with me,
for the songs of the Ancients
are calling.
Orion is straight above our heads,
and we must make
this night’s journey.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
by Thomas Davis
Sweet Bacchus in a passion ate his heart
As spirits floated through his pounding head.
The wood nymphs cheered, and rogues proclaimed the start
Of celebrations for the grateful dead.
The world went mad, and all the heavens rang
With shouts of drunken gods and mortal fools.
The mad embraced the mad. Chimeras sang
That chaos had replaced all laws and rules.
The stars inside the sky flew at the sun.
The peaceful moon turned red with hidden fires.
The night turned white and then began to run
Like liquid paint into the fires of funeral pyres.
But just before destruction raised its lovely head,
Sweet Bacchus died. Sweet Eros died. Was dead.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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