Blue on yellow, yellow on green.
The white cloth-patched sky belongs
With the thin gauze look
Of a dragonfly’s wings.
A poem is…. a conversation
Just heard by you and me,
A laugh, a smile, a deep black sky,
And the ever changing sea.
a children’s poem by Thomas Davis
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
When scientists discovered
the wings of a cricket
preserved in stone
from the Jurassic period,
they played its wings
and heard
an ancient love song
never heard
in our world before,
a new song.
This morning,
while driving home:
A colt had been flung
to the side of the road,
killed in the night
by a passing car,
its little body
nearly missed
because it was
so small—
small enough
to still be brought
to its mother’s belly,
its mother gone,
too.
a love song
unfinished.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a passage from The Dragon Epic by Thomas Davis
1
Up from the mountain slopes above the circle
Of black stone, dragons filled the sky, their hearts
And spirits fierce with dragon rage and war.
Above them, eyes afire, Sshruunak watched fiercely,
Exultant that his time had come, the skies
So filled with rising dragons that they seemed
A swarm of blackness, death aimed at the humans.
The sun was bright and echoed off the snow
That covered jagged peaks thrown at the sky.
He glided as they came to him, then turned
Toward the village closest to the caves
And shrilled his challenge at the universe.
2
The blackness emanating from the mountains
Made Wei attempt to move her too large wings
And lift herself into the morning air.
The snow around her sprayed and glittered light
Into the shining blue of cloudless skies.
Ssruuanne moved quickly back to miss the force
Of wings more powerful than Wei could know.
The human child inside the dragon body
Felt tears well up inside her tearless eyes
As nothing seemed to move as muscles strained
To lift a body not her body off
The snowy ground to insubstantial air.
Wei moved her massive legs and beat her wings
And roared frustration, startling her hearts
That thundered in her chest and frightened her.
She was a child, she thought. She could not be
A dragon with a dragon’s roar and hearts.
A little way away a wild-eyed Mmirrimann
Kept glancing at the sky and then at Wei,
His feet a drum-like tattoo on the snow.
He looked as if he did not know if he
Should launch into the skies or watch the rainbow
In front of him take life that seemed unreal.
Around him, stretched as far as Wei could see,
The other dragons stared at Mmirrimann,
Then Wei, as if they waited for a sign
That told them what the black mind-storm assailing
Them meant inside a day of miracle.
Great dragon eyes whirled colors at the light
Intense enough to make the morning golden.
Ssruuanne was silent as the human dragon
Strained at the gravities of solid ground.
She looked confused, as if she could not make
Her thoughts reorder to reality.
Reality seemed skewered from the course
Of natural life, its permanence undone.
At last, the struggle in her thoughts’ confusion
So strong it made Ssruuanne feel more human
Than elder dragon born with dragon strength,
She shook her massive golden head and grumbled,
“On ground this flat you have to run to fly.
The question is, what are you flying to?”
Sshruunak’s cry slammed its triumph through the plateau
As Wei began to run, her panic turbulent.
She lurched from one side to another side
As Mmirrimann and other dragons cleared
A path for her and wings that did not match
The rhythm of her wildly churning legs.
Ssruuanne took off so smoothly, wings
A golden flashing in the light, she seemed
A definition of a dragon’s grace.
Along the edges of the dragons’ circle
A dozen other dragons leaped to flight.
Then Wei, her heartbeats double beating rhythms
Her legs and wings could synchronize, so slow
It seemed as if she’d slam into the ground,
Rose from the snow into the air in flight.
She murmured to herself to feel the wonder
Of being what she was, a dragon flying
From human form into the heaven’s skies.
Around her dragons filled the air, so many
There did not seem the space to hold them all.
The blackness drumming at her mind suppressed
Exhilaration storming through her spirit.
She was a human dragon flying, strong
Enough to be the being she’d become!
And then she felt another cry, a human cry
That shivered where her arms had been and made
Her human heart asynchronous with how
Her dragon hearts beat with the beat of wings.
She gasped, a human, still a dragon. Fear
And anger made her stall, then start the beat
That kept her in the air again, the blackness
A song outside of who she’d ever be.
3
The coal black dragon led the arrowhead
Of dragons flying at the waiting village.
His heart calm, Cragdon turned and shouted out
The warning that the village knew would come,
Then dropped behind the wall and took his bow
Into his hand and lit a flaming arrow.
There had to be more dragons in the flock
Of dragons flying to their human war
Than he had ever seen in all his life.
Ruarther had not flinched to fight a dragon
By moonlight when the two of them had faced
What seemed to be a night of certain death.
Ruarther had no spirit of his own,
But Cragdon had a wife and child and love
And would not flinch to splash his arrow’s flame
Into the hardness of a dragon’s scales.
He waited, glanced to see the dragon’s distance,
Then knelt behind the stony wall again.
4
Ruanne, upon her cottage roof, heard Cragdon’s voice
And knew the time of blackness came on wings
Of many colors as attacking dragons
Gave shape to darkened songs inside her mind.
She felt the power of their warrior song
And felt her witch’s power stirring in response.
Come on, she thought. Come on. We’ll meet you here.
She lit the pot that leaped with flame and yelled
Defiance at the coming dragon horde.
To listen to this passage of the epic, click on The Deadly Dragon Horde.
Note: This is the forty second passage of a long narrative poem, which has grown into The Dragon Epic. Originally inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on Dragonflies, Dragons and Her Mother’s Death to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to Fate and Sentinels to read the passage before this one. To read the following passage, click on .
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Raven is a kicker.
He loves to have fun—
nose dives in the sky,
rides the sixty mile an hour winds,
sliding over the Santa Fe railroad
coming from California
and over highway 40
as the semis roll by.
Raven loves to make someone his joke—
sneaks up on his buddies
and scares them to death.
Smart old cuss too.
I saw him flying
with a pop can in his beak,
heading west toward Gallup.
He’ll do well.
They pay seventy cents a pound.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a love poem to Ethel by Thomas Davis
Like a snowflake in August is my love,
Like an August sun on a winter day,
Like the small thunder of a shining raindrop
Striking on a roof of stone.
O lobster colored sunfire,
How can the heavens be strewn with stars
When the sun has not felt the coolness
Of the gently silvered moon?
I have felt snowflakes in August
And been warmed by an August sun in winter.
I have heard small thunder ringing,
Brought by the drumming of raindrops,
Upon the stone roof of my soul.
O lobster colored sunfire,
Do you not know the differences made by love?
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
1
I was never invited
to the table,
but had to sit outside.
I reached
for another–
whose lap
I crawled on,
whose branches
of trees
reached
out to me
with their arms.
2
Old Mother,
who heals
with the rushing
waters of spring,
the quiet white
of deep winter snows,
with the smell of leaves
breaking down
in the fall
and the bright moonlight
on warm summer nights,
Old Mother reached out to me.
3
I was never invited
to the table,
but had to sit outside,
and there
I found another
who
gathered animal spirits
beside me
on another path
in another world.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
on Ethel’s birthday
Bring to me water
Taken from the well of the moon.
Bring to me bread
Baked into brown, round loaves.
This is my water and bread:
My woman with hands as white as the moon
And eyes as dark as the brown loaves
Bringing me the food and drink of life.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
When I came close
to you,
you took a knife
and began
stabbing me all over.
And
the pain
was so great
I could hardly
bear it.
But, as I looked
into the mirror
there were
no wounds, no blood.
But I felt great pain
and many stab wounds.
How could this be?
I looked again
into the mirror,
and on your chest
were many wounds,
and
blood was pouring out
all over
your body.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
a passage from The Dragon Epic by Thomas Davis
1
As Cragdon stood upon the field stone wall,
He felt a wind so cold it drove through flesh.
The weirding in the wind came harrowing
Into his spirit, forcing him to hunch
Against the battering that rolled from mountains,
Past where he stood, into the village humans.
He strained to see the dragons in the skies
Ruanne had said were coming full of rage.
The men had taken up positions meant
To let them fling their arrows from a wall
That would not burn when dragon flame belched out
Toward the vulnerability of human flesh.
The mothers had their children hidden, buried
Beneath the slabs of stone beneath the floors
Of cottages built when the dragon wars
Were devastating human, dragon lives.
He straightened up against the chilling wind
And thought about the blackness of the dragon
He’d fought beside Ruarther in the dark.
Inside Ruanne’s small cottage, dragon eyes had slammed
Into his spirit, forcing him to fall,
But now he stood determined, stronger than
He’d been just weeks ago, a warrior armed
With weapons that he’d use to fight the evil
Swooped raging from a night-black silver sky.
He felt the dragons even though he saw
No trace of dragons in the morning light.
He shifted on the wall and tried to see
Beyond the distance walling in the sky.
He’d fought a dragon once, he told himself.
They’d not use claws and fires to devastate
Ruanne and all the men who’d sought him when
He’d stumbled through the blinding of the snow.
He’d use what strength he had to shield his wife
And child against the possibilities
Horrendous in the wheel of human fate.
2
The black rage boiled at Mmirrimann and stirred
His blood to mindlessness, Sshruunak’s rebellion
A seething hatred as he turned away
From what the human girl had generated
Out of her mother’s need and looked toward
The mountain skies where dragons rose to war.
Ssuranne, beside him, stared at him in silence.
She stood beside the human rainbow dragon
And waited as he conquered mindless rage
And started calculating what response
Made sense as miracle confronted fate–
Tinged with the promise of extinction facing
Continuance of all of dragonkind.
The other dragons, ringed around the girl
Transmuted to a dragon, seemed distraught,
Eyes shocked by feeling blackness ricocheted
Across the fields of snow, Sshruunak a nightmare
They’d thought would go away, but dreaded deep
Inside their in-most thoughts, rebellion woven
Into the history all dragons lived.
They seemed to hesitate as Mmirrimann
Decided what he’d do to meet the challenge
Sshruunak had sent into the dragon host.
“He’ll end the dragon race,” growled Mmirrimann.
“Responding will create a dragon war,”
Ssuranne replied, her thoughts intense and sickened.
“No dragon’s fought another dragon since
The Time of Mindlessness and Gorgon’s fight
To build the strength of dragon sentience.
We cannot fight the daughters and the sons
We saw break from their eggs into the light.”
The rainbow dragon, still pulsating light,
Looked calmly at the two of them, her changing
Done, humanness a part of who she was,
A dragon on a field where other dragons were.
Her song was softer than a dragon’s song,
Her voice so musical and clear is was
Like springtime winds whooshed through the leaves of trees.
“The dragon race will live,” she said. “The war
Will not disgrace the strength of who you are.”
She spread her multi-colored wings and drove
Them downwards as she rose inelegantly
Into the air above the frozen pond.
3.
As Reestor lit the fires inside the pots
The men would use to light the arrows used
To splash flames over hardened dragon scales,
He cursed the day and said a heartfelt prayer
To Selen, hoping love could overcome
The pain and suffering about to bloom
Into the garden of the wondrous earth.
Ruanne, beside him, said no word, but sparked
The flame into the pot he placed beside
Each man, eyes grim with fear and strength of mind.
He could not hear the children hidden dark
Beneath the cottages, but knew they cried
And pleaded with their mothers for their love
As life became a dream they’d never dreamed
Would change their lives while they were still so young.
He thought about the horror of his father’s death
And wondered why the ancient horror marched
Alive into a time when wars were in the past.
He almost dropped the pot he held when flame
Flared up too high and almost singed his hand.
Ruanne just looked at him, still silent, scolding
Eyes wild with brewing, devastating spells.
Unsettled, Reestor looked toward the wall
Where Cragdon and the others strained their eyes
To see the dragons flying at the village.
Someone would see them coming, shout their warning,
And life would change from what it ought to be,
And nothing would be like it once had been.
To listen to this passage, click on Fate and Sentinels
Note: This is the forty first passage of a long narrative poem, which has grown into The Dragon Epic. Originally inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on Dragonflies, Dragons and Her Mother’s Death to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to The Shock of Rage to read the passage before this one. To read the next passage in the epic click on The Deadly Dragon Horde.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
She dropped her eyes
when a white woman
said, good morning.
Silence
is all there was.
Perhaps she remembered
the Long Walk
and what the whites did:
How they starved
and killed
the Navajo,
down to five thousand—
how they decimated them
until their chromosomes
layed waste
and disease set in,
diseases where the people
cannot go out in the sun
without dying.
Silence is what she spoke.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
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