by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I will sneak
up on you
like I do
on a wild animal,
just to get
a far away glimpse.
I will give you
time to get close,
or run away,
if you need to.
Last night
in my telling dream,
you came to me
to shake my hand,
and then we did
a secret hand shake,
and you broke apart
into a million pieces.
Here, touch
my soul
one last time
before you leave.
copyright, White Ermine Across Her Shoulders, 2011
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Oriole throws
a cup of stars
my way,
and I’m hooked
forever.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The piñons
have become brittle
in this dry desert heat.
How I yearn
for the sound of water—
a sound of rain
running in rivulets
and then into fast
moving streams,
finally joining
the rushing rivers.
How I’ve yearned
for the blue-green arms
of Lake Superior
to hold me again
with its disordered forests,
with every kind
of fern and moss
dotting its shoreline.
But the giant piñon,
in its fluid dance
toward the sky,
twists and turns
into the deepest
part of us
and gives peace
to our psyches.
The chaos of nature
brings the mind
to order—
the unplanned spacings
of land and water,
wilderness,
keeps the soul
from flying apart.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
One moment of madness
in a thousand is enough
when the brain slips
back into some old wound,
a wound made almost painless
by the shading of years.
Yet the old grooves
are easily found—
like a seal of shame
worn open in the sun.
And in the splitting of madness
all is lost to one emotion,
but regained
in the clear-formed thought
as seeing the precious stone
occasionally in deep rock.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The Mourning Cloak
came to the garden
and sat near my foot.
Large, chocolate wings
greeted the sunshine.
Remember when we talked
about the butterfly effect?
You were excited
about that theory.
You talked about butterfly power.
Do you remember?
When the Chilean miners
told about the butterfly in the mine
that saved them from the cave-in,
they talked about how amazed they were
that a butterfly
was down in the dark.
They stopped to watch it
fly around their head lamps
just as the mine collapsed ahead of them.
I didn’t have to tell you, though,
because I already see a curl on your lips.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
an abstract pastel drawing by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Art, Art by Ethel Mortenson Davis, Ethel Mortenson Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
At sunset
the birds of heaven
came in low to land.
A flock of gray and red
sandhill cranes
filled a stage-like sky
with laughter
that echoed across
the wetlands of Superior,
across the jutting gray rocks
and ragged white pine,
and through
hearts and lungs
and minds.
Note: The phrase “the birds of heaven” came from a book of that name by Peter Mathiessen.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I am not a sequins person,
so I cut all the sequins off
the shirt I bought.
It took two hours
because each sequin was
knotted and sewn by hand.
The tag said,
”hand sewn garment.”
It had taken the child,
or young woman,
many hours to complete—
piece-work she had perhaps
taken home to make a few
extra pennies.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
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