by Ethel Mortenson Davis
in too long
of an afternoon
eyes wait,
lost to the whirling, dark,
bitter,
apple-green sky
burdened black,
unaware
fields
suddenly
carried out to sea,
drowned green
in the white foam.
after,
new
songs emerge,
gasping,
bent
under
the newness.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
On an instrument of ten strings
I will make melody for her,
putting in warehouses waters from the surging sea,
holding in granaries dye-dust of a butterfly’s wings.
O woman, how long you have held me with your eyes:
Night passing to day, and day passing to night again,
time moving like a particle of sand
suspended as a grain of texture in the river’s watery flow.
The thunder of your eyes has made me a stone,
silent, and still, somehow, full of my character,
the colors of my soul blending into skies
and transforming grayness into the colors of stone-like stars.
Putting in warehouses waters from the surging sea,
holding in granaries dye-dust of a butterfly’s wings,
on an instrument of ten strings
I will make melody for her.
Note: The love poems I am publishing were written during the late 1960s and early 1970s during the early years of Ethel’s and my love. Going back to them years later, I am surprised at how much more lyrical my poetry was back then than it is now even though I write in meter or meter and rhyme currently, and most of the early love poems were free verse. This early poetry’s language was often inspired by The Holy Bible, mostly from the Books of Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Song of Solomon, if I am not mistaken. I am still writing love poems to Ethel. She, and our children and grandchildren, still provide light to my life.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
The snowflakes that hit
the Patagonian glacier
take three-hundred years
before they are released–
released into fluid streams
that etch their way
to the bottom of the
great glacier,
breaking it’s back
before moving it out
Into the ocean.
There should be places
where no man
sets his foot.
The earth doesn’t seem
to be the right place
for man….
or
mankind does not seem
to fit the earth,
but other species know
how to live
with boundaries.
When there is scarcity,
other animals know never to reach
a population
greater than the resources.
Man is looking
to be released
from his own doing,
released from
his own glacier.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
an epic poem by Thomas Davis
I
Inside her dream Wei flew through skies so blue
They seemed to vibrate with a pulsing life—
And then she was awake, the fire stoked down,
Air frigid, dark intense, more night than night.
Her mother, gleaming, sat upon her bed
And seemed to look at worlds Wei could not see.
Wei huddled in the covers, warm, content
To see her mother in her life again,
But then her mother sensed she was awake
And stood, light streaming from her sudden movement.
Her mother did not speak, but stared at her.
Behind her mother in the faint blue haze,
Vague, other figures huddled, eyes unfocused.
Wei carefully sat up, the covers clutched
Beneath her chin, her heartbeats in her ears.
Her mother waved her arm. The room’s deep cold
Seemed colder still. Wei stared, afraid.
Each time she’d seen her mother in the room
She’d not felt fear, but now a warmth spread over
Her trembling body, banishing the cold,
And in the warmth she felt as if she’d lost
The little girl she was and found a self
Not made at birth, but forged from hands that waved
A spectral light into the night’s cold dark.
She felt as if she tottered on a cliff
Above a canyon plunging down sheer walls
Toward the River Lethe far below.
Entranced, she slid from covers, stood up straight,
Heart larger than her heart had ever been.
II
While moving from the conclave cavern out
Into the tunnel leading to her cave,
Ssuranne felt warmth beneath her scales, a strangeness.
She stopped and felt the geas come over her,
This time so powerful it seemed to seize
Control of who she was. What now? She asked,
Her two hearts struggling against the power
That flooded deep into her brain and made
Her want to leap into the air and fly toward
The human girl’s small cottage in the dark.
She felt the witch inside the tunnel with her.
In irritation at the urgency
She felt, she forced her legs to root themselves
Into the tunnel’s floor, her exercise
Of dragon will a force against the geas.
The dragon race was fading everywhere,
But here inside the mountain, where the peace
They’d forged had held a hundred years and let
Them build community now threatened by
Sshruunak’s rage brought about by how the geas
Had shot into the conclave’s fear, they’d thrived.
What madness shattered through a dragon’s will?
The dragons’ rage had violated peace.
The dragons’ center was disintegrating,
The evolution that had caused a burst
Of eggs and dragonets now close to failing.
She felt the sadness dragging Mmirimann
Back to his cave, the sense he felt at having
His greatest triumph turn to bitter ash.
What should she do? She asked herself. The geas
Was like a cloud that danced with lightning bolts,
So powerful it took away her strength.
She was no human who the spirit world
Could enter, forcing her to do its will.
At last she sighed. She walked toward the ledge.
III
Unwilling, Wei walked haltingly toward
The cottage door. She was not dressed for cold,
But as her mother moved her spectral arms
And light danced in the darkness, warmth surrounded
Her body, forced the winter cold away.
Beside the door she glanced back at her mother.
Her father, fainter than her mother’s form,
Stood just behind the light her mother cast,
The love the two of them had felt in life
Now emanating out toward their daughter.
Without a thought she opened up the door
And walked onto the path she’d made with light
Into the drifts of snow and looked toward
The mountains and the night’s black, bitter skies.
IV
The Old One sent a stream of steady flame
To clear a circle by the human girl
And flared her golden wings and touched the ground.
She felt the changing of the world she’d known,
The keening of a dragon as they fought for life
Against a horde of tiny men that shot
Their arrows further than they’d ever shot—
Their triumph singing songs of dragon death.
She felt the girl’s bright eyes, as calm as water
On pools without a breath of wind, sweep over
Her, soaking up her spirit, seeing past
Her scales into the beating of her hearts.
“You’re Wei,” she said, her voice surprising her.
The girl kept staring, drawing strength and power
From where her mother stood beside her bed.
“Ssuranne,” the young girl said, “your name’s Ssuranne.”
She sounded awed, as if she could not grasp
That she was standing in the winter snow
Without a coat or boots and hearing words
Said by a dragon only seen in skies.
The geas collapsed. Ssuranne felt free, but stood
Her ground. What did the young girl want? What caused
Her mother’s spirit’s restlessness and power?
V
Wei did not move, but stared, eyes soaking
Ssruanne into her memories and self.
The golden scale she’d burned into her arm
Pulsed hot and made her feel her blood spin back
Into a time when humans’ ancient power
Flowed through their flesh, their minds, their deepest selves.
VI
The girl’s eyes stopped their searching, glanced at ground.
Ssruanne looked at the girl and saw the dragon
Inside the storm of spirits in Wei’s spirit.
There’s something new upon the earth, she thought,
And with the thought she seemed to hear a chant
That flooded her with hope and dreams and love.
Fear coursed into her blood and made her feel
As if the human girl was part of her,
As if the penetrating eyes saw cells
Inside her body like they saw her scales.
She tore her eyes away from Wei and looked
Toward where dawn was brewing early day.
She spread her wings and lifted from the ground.
To hear an oral reading of the poem, click The Meeting of Wei and Ssruanne
Note: This is the seventeenth 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 16 to read the installment before this one; 18 to read the next installment,
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
A great cat
stretches her
elongated muscles
in the morning light,
sending a yawn
rippling along
her wiry body,
paying little attention
to the scurrying ants
on her ground.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
the journey of the elephants
One day in early June
Shook trees and shook the peaceful ground
And even shook the moon!
Then, with a movement huge and slow,
The herd began to run,
And thunder pealed amidst the hills
So loud it shook the sun!
Note: This was the first children’s poem I wrote. We were going to college in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and Sonja loved to ride on my back and call me her elephant herd. Mary had just been born and was in her crib while her older sister and I played in our small living room, and so this small poem was born.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Our son would not last
another night.
We stopped to have coffee
at a corner restaurant.
The woman in the booth
next to us said,
“Lemar, I told you
to sit down and shut up,
or I’ll slap you
up the side of your head.”
The little boy sat down
and then stood up,
not knowing what to do.
Finally he sat down.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
by Thomas Davis
Uncover my eyes that I may look
And see the mountains covered with shadow,
The tambourine of stars in the sky,
The trumpet of the new moon!
Uncover my eyes that I may look
And see the rain cloud tent over the earth,
The rain slant like small grey spears into the earth,
The small rivers flowing away from flinty rock!
Uncover my eyes that I may look
And see her dancing to the melodious sound of the harp,
Her feet moving like the wind-blown blossoms of cherry trees,
Her hands clapping in time to the movement of stars!
Note: This is a love poem I wrote to Ethel when we were both young. These and the children’s poems I am posting were written in the 1960s and 1970s. Reading these, I find I have lost the young poet’s lyricism. But I still love Ethel. A lifetime love is still possible.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Once, when the creek
had swelled its banks in spring,
and I had run to meet its new boundaries
to build a raft again
that could carry me down the Little Sandy
toward lands unknown,
I was sidetracked by a patch
of blue and yellow violets—
too many to let go unnoticed,
found among the wet and shady places—
and I forgot about the countries unseen.
And in fist-fulls I came running,
sharing them with you—
and you received them well,
arranging them in glass jars,
teaching me to love
the spring beauties and things:
The funny-faced Holstein calves
and the timid chickadees
who came in December
to snatch your winter’s crumbs.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
an epic poem by Thomas Davis
His stupefaction, as he sat in snow
Beside the boulder as his pain seared skin,
Kept him from seeing Cragdon packing up
To struggle back the way they’d come across
The treachery of fields of blinding snow.
“I’m leaving now,” the young man said, his face
A mask of pain where dragon’s fire had burned
His arm and side. “I’m done. I’m going home.”
Ruarther, from his seat, looked up and stared
Into the young man’s bleary-looking eyes.
“You’ve lost your mind,” he said. “We’re injured bad.
Until we’ve got our hurts controlled, the village
Is just a dream you’ll never reach alive.”
The pre-dawn cold was hinting at the light
Now filtering along the eastern ridges.
“I knew I’d have to go alone,” the young man said.
“You’re crazy. Why I followed you out here
Is something that I’ll never understand.”
“The witch’s child has stirred the dragons up,”
Ruarther growled. “You’re suffering from burns
Inflicted by a dragon hurtling
From skies without a reason made by us.”
“Perhaps it read our minds and gave us warning
That murdering a child is not the way
To keep the human, dragon peace,” he said.
“I’ll send the hunters out with fresh supplies.
You’ll have to keep alive until you’re found.”
Ruarther looked inside the raging self
That seemed to boil with pain and anger branded
So deep it was the substance of his life.
He growled again, but did not say a word.
As Cragdon looked at him, the man he’d seen
As better than a man could ever be,
His hero since he’d been a child who’d hung
Upon the village’s stone wall to watch
For hunters coming from the woods, their game
On tripods made of fresh-cut branches roped
Around their hips, or slung on massive shoulders,
And wondered why he’d failed to see the truth.
The grim, dark man who leaned against the boulder
Was not a village man, but bound
To raving spirit beasts whose sentience
Danced chaos born from rage into the world.
He shook his head and looked toward the slopes
That angled down toward the only place
He really cared about inside the world.
“I’m going now,” he said. The snow shined brightly
As sunrise danced with sky fire as it crept
Across the treacherous, white miles of crust.
He wondered if he had the strength to make
It to his wife and child, the life he loved.
He briefly wondered where the dragon was.
It too was facing weeks of burning pain.
He shook his head, then moved out from the ridge.
Ruarther failed to hear, or see, when Cragdon
Began his journey home. He fought to block
His pain from consciousness and tried to focus
Upon the task of finding peace again
By murdering the witch’s child and letting dragons
Go back to living in their caves away
From hunters and their villages and homes.
He tried to see the child’s unnatural eyes
And wondered how a witch with minor skills
Could birth a witch so powerful her strings
Turned dragons into puppets of her will.
He felt the golden dragon’s whirling eyes
Confront him, heard the power in her voice,
But when he looked around to see her body,
The wilderness and sky were empty, vast
Beyond imagination, fevers wrapped
Around him like a fire inside his flesh.
He cupped snow in his hands and spread its cold
Upon his burns and coughed deep in his lungs.
He wondered if he’d be alive when dawn
Lit up the sky again and wheeled another day.
But then he knew: He’d kill the witch’s child.
He’d give Ruanne the peace his love deserved.
He’d let the dragons settle back into their lives.
He forced himself onto his feet and put
More wood to burn upon the dying fire.
Click to hear an audio of this section: Separation in the Wilderness
Note: This is the sixteenth 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 15 to read the installment before this one. Click on 17 to go to the next installment.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
fourwindowspress 