by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The new calves are growing stiff from the wetness of birth, and old men come running across the fields asking, who killed our apple-blossom time? I say to them, surely dead leaves can’t grow in your pockets now.
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The New Calves
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Flicker
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
At dawn a loud crash sounded against the house. A flicker lay struggling on the ground, his life ending. A beautiful bird with speckled chest, yellow tail, and red feathers on his head looked as though his spine was broken. I put him in a quiet part of the garden. His weak cries were fearful. Later that day, when I checked, he seemed closer to death. The next morning when I went to collect him, he was gone. I want to think he got up and flew up to the top of my tree, but probably a cat or fox found him on their trek across the country.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Unfurrowing
by Ethel Mortenson Davis The unfurrowing of new leaves is like a carefully synchronized orchestra with each musician in exact harmony. But we do not stand and applaud. Only Oriole gets up and sings his splendid song, dressed in brightly colored vestments.
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The Rite of Spring
photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
The Rain Stepped Softly
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The rain stepped softly
over us last night,
kissing us with
sweet tenderness.
But we push her away,
telling her to leave us alone —
like the spoiled, unthankful
children we are.
Seed
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
A Vision
Out of the fire,
with the splitting
of the cone,
a seed emerges.
Thunderstorms
bring it to the soil.
A new tree begins
it’s rapture.
Out of the fire
we have found
new pathways,
a new vision.
We bring the least of us
along in our wagons.
There are no slaves or rich men.
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Unusual Landscape
a pastel by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
Mammals
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
They tried to tell us
you didn’t have souls—
but I knew better.
Your eyes showed it.
Your sense of humor
spoke it.
The way you took care
of your young
screamed it.
They tried to tell us
you didn’t have souls,
but I knew better.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Winter, with bellowing cheeks,
blew and spat ice and snow
across the fields and streams,
across the woods and sides of lakes,
leaving a jagged and spiked print—
Like the Australian Aborigine
who puffed out his cheeks
and spat minerals
across his hand
in a cave on a wall,
leaving his print for humanity.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I will call you dignity.
You are my mother.
You elevate our character.
And I will call you generosity;
you are my father.
You give us a largeness
that frees us from small meanness.
As for you, humanity,
I will call you lost.
Remember when you said,
“What good is poetry?”
“I cannot shape it into a vessel
and drink water out of it.”
“I cannot form it into a purse
and hold my money in it.”
Now, my lost one,
you have fallen into a hole.
You are on your hands and knees,
calling in the darkness
for your mother and father,
calling for poetry to be written.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, poems, Poetry
