by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Oriole throws
a cup of stars
my way,
and I’m hooked
forever.
Tag Archives: poems
Chaos
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
The White Bird
by Thomas Davis
Rainwater falls…
Falls…
Into puddles,
Upon rain-shining stones.
Amidst the stones
A lone white bird
Sings of cherries, sweet and black,
and spring.
You sit upon a stone
In the rain listening…
Listening,
Hearing rainwater
And the bird mingling melodies.
Life is strange,
For the rain, the white bird,
you, and the songs
Form a beautiful image.
The rain…
Falling…
Falling.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
One Moment of Madness
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
21. Journeying to Chaos: A Search for Survival
an epic poem by Thomas Davis
Inside his cave, his massive spirit brooding,
The great male Mmirimann was still, his hearts
Swift rhythms slowed to somnolence, near death.
He journeyed through the layers of his self,
The memories ancestors had bestowed
In him kaleidoscopic as he saw
The dragon race devolve into a rage
Red-eyed, incensed that human brains could scurry
In bodies small as ants and still wrap him
With ropes that would not let him save himself.
And still he journeyed through his dragoness
Until he passed the vestiges of who
A dragon was and let the darkness grow
Into a universe much greater than his self.
At last, inside miasma, hearts still slow,
He came into a barren field, a place
Between the stars where sunlight never shined,
Not earth, not space, a place devoid of substance,
Yet real, where shades gloamed in the dusk
As chaos sang into the birth of stars
Yet in the eggs that would grow into light.
He felt the living substances of spirits,
Great animals whose strength had let them flee
Finality of death, the human shades
That teemed and swirled in clouds of mourning, searching
For absolution from the dark that came
Out of their lives and sense of who they’d been
While living in their times upon the earth,
The dragons, that still flew in rage in dark,
Grown monstrous with unwillingness to die
Though some had lived three hundred years or more.
Inside cacophony Mmirimann
Searched for an answer to his endless quest
To find a corridor where dragons lived
And did not spiral to their race’s death,
But everywhere he looked the universe
Of death whirled clouds of beasts and humans, dragons
That flew at him, their momentary faces
Alive with being, then a trail of mist
As bright eyes disappeared into the rising
Of other beings with their faces solid,
Then mist and chaos swirling endlessly.
There was no ending, no beginning, just
A swirling where a train of beings rose
Into their sense of self, then lost themselves
As time coagulated, formed, then flowed
Into the swirl of being, nothingness.
There was a dragon race; there was no race,
Its rising swallowed by the human song
That dominated all the earth, then, like
The dragons, swirled its eyes into miasma
As planets swung around their suns, and suns
Flared light into their darkness as their fires
Exploded into nova gravities
That swallowed matter near in time and space
And swirled into the chaos like the dragons,
The humans, the spirit beasts, the beings found
On other worlds in other times, miasma
Creating, shaping, then destroying as
Forever spun the endless mind of God.
The swirling tugged at Mmirimann and tried
To suck him deep into its endless maw.
He felt his mind and body disappearing
As dragon after dragon formed, then misted,
Its substance real, then disappeared, time filled
With lives that were, but never were, that sang
And then became a hurricane of souls
That had no individual substance, life,
But were the matter of the universe,
The swirl of chaos that created All.
He fought the tugging, taloned deep the spark
That made him who he was, a dragon great
Enough to brave the journey past his self,
And searched in desperation for a shelf
That he could grasp inside the maelstrom’s swirl.
And then he saw a single buzz of light
That did not waver, but was fixed inside
The endless swirling weaving strands of time.
He fought toward the light, the ledge where he
Could spread his wings and launch back to his life.
Time roared with silence, buffeting against
His will, his self, his sense of who he was.
He fought toward the buzz of light and forced
Himself to know himself, his dragon hearts—
And then he saw inside the light a human,
A woman from his place and time now dead,
Surrounded by a knot of humans waving
Their arms, creating substance from the chaos,
Their force a bridge between his world and where
He was inside the wind that was no wind.
A golden dragon wavered at the edge
Of where the human spectres generated
The ordered light, the only dragon seen
Inside the chaos of the roiling darkness.
He did not know if dragons lived or died
As time swirled from chaotic winds and gloam.
He could not see the corridor he sought
So that Sshrunnak’s rage would not lead to death
For dragons borning future generations.
He urged himself toward the light and blinked.
He felt his cave’s stone walls, hearts quickening,
The chaos just a song inside his ears.
To listen to this section of the epic, click Journeying to Chaos.
Note: This is the twenty first installment of a long narrative poem. 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 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 20 to read the installment before this one. Click on 22 to go to the next section of the epic.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
Butterfly Lover
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
The Old Moon Is A Cleaning Lady
a children’s poem by Thomas Davis
The old moon is a cleaning lady
With high, star-buttoned, coal-black shoes.
She comes to work when sleep and dreams
Are all that’s left of me and you.
She sweeps the cobwebs from the sky
With brooms of shining silver light
And scrubs the day floors of the sun
With waters darker than the night.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Cranes
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
20. Inside a Furnace
an epic poem by Thomas Davis
He felt as if he was inside a furnace,
The brick kiln burning with a glowing heat,
His skin so sensitive it seared with pain
As if he’d touched a fiery red-hot coal
And spread its agony across his face,
Hours blistering into eternity,[1]
The fire from dragon’s breath a shroud he wore
That made each wracking gasp for air his life.
Inside this pain he still got to his feet
And gathered wood and kept the fire alive
As night turned day turned night turned day again.
He would not die, he said inside his mind.
He could not think, but still, he told himself.
I will not die. I’ll live another day.
A dawn rose golden over mountain peaks.
Snow sheened sky gold across the wilderness.
Asleep at last, arms twitching uncontrollably
As nightmares danced with fire and pain,
Ruarther did not see the bear rise from
The ashes of the dwindling fire so huge
It seemed as if it was the spawn of dragons,
Its dark, brown fur tinged gold by morning light.
Its smell was strong enough to have a whiff
Of sulfur as it shimmered, then solidified
Above the man who whimpered in his sleep.
The great bear wove its arms above the man.
Ruarther woke, his blood shot eyes wide with his fear.
The bear stood silent, waiting, coiled intensity.
Ruarther tried to gather thoughts from pain,
The shroud of heat consuming who he was.
“I have to kill the witches’ child,” he croaked,
His throat so dry with heat it hurt to talk.
The bear’s eyes gleamed and glared at him.
“Blood is a juice of rarest quality,”[2] it said.
“You are a spirit bear,” Ruarther said.
“You have the strength to take this pain away.”
The bear just stared at him. Light streamed around
Its massive form and shimmered as the sun
Rose up above the mountain peaks and golden light
Blurred deep into the blue of winter sky.
“I’ll feed upon your pain,” the great bear said.
“I’ll feed upon the pain your hatred burns
Into the human and the dragon worlds.”
The fire behind it blazed a dance of flames.
The great bear turned and seemed to sway with winds
Not felt within Ruarther’s winter world.
It roared, the sound so loud if shook a crest
Of snow and sent it plummeting from off
The ridge above Ruarther’s camp, a cloud
That stung Ruarther’s skin and chilled the shroud
Wrapped round his burning flesh and mind.
Ruarther gasped. He could not breathe. The cold
Of nothingness pierced deep into his bones.
He felt as if he had no eyes or ears,
As if his human senses had dissolved
Into a void where men did not belong.
The bear was in the void, a monstrous shape
That had no form, but whirled into a wind
That was no wind, but ash that heaped its blackness
Into a glittering beside a fire
That wisped with smoke into the freezing skies.
Ruarther’s lungs gasped air. He shuddered, gulped
The bitter cold into his lungs as if
It was ambrosia, life, unexpected joy!
He was amazed to feel that he was still
Alive, a human not possessed by spirits
That roamed the earth in search of human souls.
He touched his arm. His flesh was hot.
He flinched to feel the pain his touch could cause.
His weariness ached deep inside his mind
And made each joint and bone seem brittle, sore,
But he felt cold. The shroud of fiery heat
Had dissipated when the bear turned back
Into the ash he’d risen from to life.
What now? He asked himself. He was alone.
The fields of snow were blinding bright with sun.
He had to have a fire to stay alive.
The huge, black dragon dove out of the dark
Toward the boulder that he hid behind.
He closed his eyes and felt the wind of wings
That lifted blackness through the moonlit skies.
He had to end the dragon threat of war.
Inside his universe of pain he’d kept that chant.
He glanced toward his bow and deadly arrows.
The bear had given back his life and will.
He’d kill the witches’ child. He’d kill the child.
He smiled. He’d rest; then, with the coming dawn,
He’d start the journey to the meadow where
A cottage sat below the caves of dragons.
He’d drive an arrow through the child’s black heart.
1 This passage was inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable,” delivered in 1741.
2 From Scene IV of Faust by Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe.
To listen to this section click Inside the Furnace.
Note: This is the twentieth installment of a long narrative poem. 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 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 19 to read the installment before this one. To read the next installment, click on 21.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
Sequins
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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