a children’s poem by Thomas Davis
The catfish river starts,
Snorts with a small ripple of foam,
And then goes to sleep again.
The afternoon is covered with sky,
The blue cloth creeping into cradles of stone
And covering dark shallows.
The catfish river rolls over,
Swells with an oily, gray, collapsing wave,
And then goes to sleep again.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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
a photograph by Alazanto, Kevin Davis, our son
Filed under Art, Photography
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
I shouldn’t have
come up over the bluff,
because that’s when
I saw the great expanse
of sky and clouds.
This morning, on my walk,
the face of the red mesa
looked cold,
and then
these extraordinary
fall clouds
beckoned me
to come up into them–
yes, taken up into
the sky.
But in a moment
my eye caught sight
of a coyote
padding along
the valley floor
almost the color
of the dirt and brush
around him,
bringing me back
to reality and hardness.
Stay hidden, coyote,
and step away
from man–
because where he steps
death is all around.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a photograph by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Photography
a photograph by Sonja Bingen
a href=”https://fourwindowspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/moon.jpg”>
Filed under Art, Photography
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
His trouble didn’t start
in Viet Nam,
although he came back
from the war
and went to live
in a cabin he built
in Northern Wisconsin.
His trouble began
when he was little,
the last of eight children
and a twin.
They put him outside
when he screamed
at supper-time—
the family couldn’t take
two more children.
His siblings taunted him.
His father beat him
when he was older
and poured his anger
and frustration out on him.
He was the scapegoat
of the family.
He still has flashbacks
thirty five years later—
still can’t be around people
or gunshots.
But his peace is in the lynx,
the bear, and the deer,
in watching them
take care of their young.
That’s all he talks about
when you go to see him.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
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