Tag Archives: Ethel Mortenson Davis

December 25, 2011 · 7:10 am

Stoneboat

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

For my final journey
I would like to take
a sleigh ride
through snow-laden roads
where branches are bent low,

a ride
behind a matched pair
of Belgian horses
whose gait becomes regal
when they begin to trot,
and bells on black harnesses
make music with the dance.

You came that day
with horses and a stoneboat
to pick us up at school.
All that day it snowed,
and at noon we ate our soup in jars
warmed on the wood stove.

You took our cousins home,
your brother’s–the one
you never saw eye to eye with–
and dropped them
within a quarter of a mile
of their house.

The stoneboat became
a glider on top of the snow,
and at home you left it behind
the shed until spring
and rock-picking time
when the earth heaves up rocks,
and we heaved up stones
too heavy for girls
on to the stoneboat.

For my final journey
I would like to take
a sleigh ride
behind two Belgians.

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December 21, 2011 · 6:06 am

The Versatile Blogger Award and the Kreativ Blogger Award

At this point Ethel and I are overwhelmed with awards. When you are nominated for an award the honor is deeper than you really deserve. I try to spend part of most days looking for new poets and artists, and when Ethel and I find one our reaction is, Ahhh, so this is what the publishing world missed in its competitiveness! Just think about how many unsung geniuses have existed since humankind discovered painting, song, and literature. The blog world is wonderful because it shares the hearts, spirits, and trying of beginners, those beginning to find their skill, journeymen, and masters, and it does so, as it does with these awards, by passing praise on, building strengths rather than concentrating on weaknesses. A creative explosion is inevitable, and this explosion has led to the creation of a river of creativity larger than the great Mississippi, and the truth is that we are only a small raft on that river, but we thank those who have nominated us and rejoice in their work.

The Versatile Blogger:

1. You must give credit to the person that has nominated you and create a link to their blog in your post.
2. You must create a list of 15 blogs that you enjoy most and link to those as well. Then you must go and tell them you have nominated them. That means if you do not have 15, you cannot do this step. If you do not complete this step, then you cannot claim this award.
3. Finally, you must create a list of seven things about yourself.

Those who have nominated Four Windows Press: Caddo Veil, whose spirit shines through her writing like sunlight on new fallen snow and Heather Whitley Gibson, who is beyond versatile, writing poetry and songs, creating art, and taking photographs that can send you away from a winter storm into another place altogether.

The Kreativ Blogger Award:

For this award Ethel and I have to share 10 things that you may not know. Then we have to pass the award on to at least six (or more) other bloggers.

Those who nominated for windows press: Scriptor Obscura, who deserves fame and fortune as a writer and poet and Slowmoto.Me, whose photographs stun you and poetry moves you the way poetry should move you.

Bloggers for the Versatile Blogger:

1. http://johnstevensjs.wordpress.com
2. gonecyclingagain.wordpress.com
3. fromaflower.wordpress.com
4. sfederle.wordpress.com
5. poeticlicensee.wordpress.com
6. skyraft.wordpress.com
7. ebbtide.wordpress.com
8. bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com
9. creativityaroused.wordpress.com
10. inaweblogisback.wordpress.com
11. erikamossgordon.wordpress.com
12. davidreidart.wordpress.com
13. bennaga.wordpress.com
14. tikarmavodicka.wordpress.com
15. southernmusings.wordpress.com

Bloggers for the Kreative Blogger Award:

1. raindancepoetry.wordpress.com
2. extrasimile.wordpress.com
3. belfastdavid.wordpress.com
4. thebackgroundstory.com
5. tasmith1122.wordpress.com
6. fewhitehead.wordpress.com

These are certainly not all the fine poets, artists, and photographers on wordpress we enjoy, but it is a good sample. Ten things about Ethel and I you may not know:

1. We raised three children and have four grandchildren
2. Ethel was raised on a dairy farm near Wausau, Wisconsin
3. Thomas (Tom) was born in Delta, Colorado and mostly grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado
4. Ethel is an artist as a cook as well as being a wonderful poet and artist
5. Tom is the Dean of Instruction at Navajo Technical College in New Mexico in the Navajo Nation and has been President of two tribal colleges, the co-founder of one, and the Dean and Acting President of another
6. Ethel loves animals with a deep and abiding passion and has been close to rattlesnakes, bears, both bald and golden eagles, and Minnesota wolves, among a long list of others, in the wild
7. Tom is well known in the world of high performance computing and technology and has written a scholarly book on sustainable development
8. We were married in Grand Junction on Christmas day because it was the only time both of us could get off at the time—44 years ago this Christmas day
9. Our house has books on shelves in every room, and we have read every one of the books in the house over the years
10. Ethel studied art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Tom did his studies at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in English, History, and Environmental Science and Policy

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December 20, 2011 · 6:29 am

Winter Days

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

I remember
how the winter days
had to be just right,
shining-cold
without a sign of wind,
to get the ponds like glass

and how we shined the glass
beneath the snow
to look at giant seas
caught under the ice
by some surprise glacier.

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December 17, 2011 · 6:40 am

White Ermine Across Her Shoulders

Ethel’s new book, White Ermine Across Her Shoulders is available now at Barnes and Noble and other online retailers:

White Ermine Across Her Shoulders has all the elements expected by
readers of Ethel Mortenson Davis’s poetry. The lines are highly imagistic
and intense. Descriptions of the earth’s beauty are intermingled with
comments, sometimes caustic, about the human experience. Often a
music rises that is both emotional and filled with language and insights
that remain in the memory long after the book has been put down. This,
Davis’s second volume, speaks eloquently about Kevin Michael Davis, her
son who died of cancer in 2010 in Poughkeepsie, NY, and touches on other
family relationships, making some of the poems more personal than those
she has published before. These poems are balanced with an understanding
of the universe and all of its creatures that encompasses both delight and
wisdom. What makes this collection appealing is an intellectual depth that
resonates, in the way of Emily Dickenson, with the imagistic and emotional
core that has always been a hallmark of Davis’s poetry.

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December 16, 2011 · 6:00 am

Migrations

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

The stealth of migrations
move across the land
under cover of darkness,
moving in hundreds
and then thousands.

You told me
about your car lights
shining in a canyon
one night–
“More elk than
one could imagine,”

moving to the southern places
where canyons lap over canyons,
lands whose vastness is greater
than the mind can comprehend,

unlike the northern deer
that migrate further north
to find giant spruce trees
whose branches touch
the ground to make
a snowless, warm canopy
for the wintering.

You said, “The axe blade
is sharpened, ready
to chop the bone
at the joints.”

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December 13, 2011 · 11:29 am

Tables

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

On my walk
this morning
I reached down to pick
a sacred-colored blossom,
but hummingbird flew out!

I’ll leave this table
for you.

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December 10, 2011 · 9:07 am

Games

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

The white birches:
Young girls
in long, white dresses,
blackberry eyes
peering out,
laughing at the winter,
peeling their dresses,
laughing
with flapping mouths jumping,
swinging in brown grass,
lovers of tall grasses,
hiding in one another’s dresses,

black eyes lost
to racing clouds.
Long, white dresses,
white skins,
lost. . .

left
in the summer’s
games.

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December 8, 2011 · 7:01 am

First Laugh

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

The old poet,
thrown out,
weeps across
the desert
until he climbs
the rim of the canyon,
and there he takes
a page from his book
and writes,

“There is a canyon people
who celebrate the first laugh
of their children.”

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December 5, 2011 · 6:36 am

Against All Odds

Ethel Mortenson Davis

Your cheek
is against
the universe.

I see you
in the plumed
desert flower
that has blossomed
because of many
winter snows,
standing erect
against driving winds,

and in
the desert iris,
sky-blue,
who takes her stand
wild-eyed
against all odds.

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December 3, 2011 · 7:47 am

A Short Bird

by Ethel Mortenson Davis

A
short bird
came today
to lie in the snow.
He told me
he was forgetting
how to fly
and forgot
how the sky
looked at night,
and he told me
he was forgetting
how he wanted to fly
(upside down sometimes),
and how he wanted
to sit on the top
of some tree he knew,

and he forgot forgetting there,
and the snow came
and covered his scream,
and he forgot nothing.

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