I have gone
to the four corners canyon
to listen
for the song,
but it is silent,
except for the wind whooshing
through junipers.
Last night
great storm clouds gathered
in the south.
This morning, before light,
I woke to chanting—
A woman’s voice
below my window.
Note: Written after a long period of writer’s block.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
Inside the cottage Ruanne sat as sunrise
Beside her loom and rocked the rocking chair
So slightly that it hardly seemed to move.
Old Broar and Reestor sat beside her waiting,
Their nervousness at weirdness burned
Into their eyes and drawn, pale hunter’s faces.
Ruanne let thoughts drift outward, fleeing light
Toward the mountains rising in the west.
The only time she’d let her thoughts drift west
Was when she’d been distracted or was close
To sleep and inbetween awake and sleep.
For years she’d forced her mind to shy away
From songs vibrating deep inside her bones.
As morning light intensified and spread
Across her flagstone floor, she saw Crayllon,
The witch, stare at the villagers as one,
And then another, picked up heavy stones
And threw them at her and her tiny child
Who wailed despair at rage and cruelty.
Crayllon had stood her ground, disheveled, rage
Distorting who she was, and held the girl
Behind her plain black skirts as she was hit
And bloodied on her arm and then her face.
Her husband newly dead, accused of forcing
A man who’d loved her all her life to die,
She’d stood as silent as the stones that bruised
Her flesh and spirit, cut her off from people
She’d lived with all her life. Her witchery,
Inherited from parents who helped to end
The wars for Clayton through their dragon-talking,
An evil that the village could not tolerate.
Grim words had sealed her fate through innuendo.
This even though her husband’s wounds had come
From dire wolves chanced upon while hunting goats.
He was too strong to die, his kin had said,
Their grief as bitter as their lives had been.
His wife had caused his death. She was a witch.
She had to die, and so they’d used their tongues
To brew a storm that led to men with stones
Hurled with excitement at a woman, child,
Themselves, their fears, the village’s ruined heart.
Inside her trance Ruanne lost where she was.
Her vision burned into her young child’s mind.
She’d never be a witch, she thought. Not her.
She’d be a village woman safe from stones.
Old Broar had been the one that stopped the madness.
He’d stepped between the witch and grinning men
And made them hesitate and told the witch
To leave, to save her child, to keep the village
From doing what would stain its spirit black,
And somehow, standing there, he’d backed the men
And women spreading lies into retreat
And let Crayllon flee to the mountain peaks.
She startled in the rocking chair. Chills ran
Along her arms and made her want to flee
Away from chaos pounding in her head.
The dragon song she’d felt before had throbbed
With harmonies that shimmered, colored dancing.
Fear, rage, regret, intensity, confusion,
Cold calculation, desperation stopped
Her rocking, made her rigid as a spire
Of stone shot up into a storming sky.
Old Broar and Reestor felt the storm she faced
And blanched, their fears alive inside of them.
Their bodies made them want to get up, flee
Into the wilderness away from what
Was pummeling Ruanne, assailing her.
They had to reach into their deepest selves
To sit and watch their young friend face her storm.
An ancient spirit felt Ruanne and stared
Into a human that she’d never thought would brave
The huge immensities inside her mind.
Ruanne felt fear rise up as if a stream
Had overflowed its banks and swept all life
Before it as it dominated earth.
The dragon seized control of who she was
And forced herself to calm and said inside
Herself, “We do not want another war.”
And then Ruanne saw where a long, dark ridge
Rose out of endless fields of drifted snow
And saw Ruarther by a fire, his face
So hideous with burns from dragon fire
She cried out in the silent room and made
The two men get up from their chairs, their hearts
Contesting wills to keep them in the cottage.
The dragons’ calm washed through Ruanne and let
Her feel herself again. She looked at Reestor,
Despair at what she’d seen so strong and urgent
She dropped the dragon song and felt a panic
That seemed to make her life irrelevant.
Her eyes were raw with tears streaked down her cheeks.
“Ruarther’s burned by dragon fire,” she said.
“The war’s begun. He made the war he wanted,
And soon its fires will sweep out of the caves.”
Old Broar looked at her frightened eyes and forced
Himself to smile. “You touched a dragon’s mind,”
He said. “You didn’t die. We have a way
Of telling them we do not want more war.”
Grim, Reestor moved and took Ruanne into his arms.
“We’ll find him. He won’t die out there,” he said.
Ruanne’s eyes filled with tears. “I love him. Damned,”
She said. “I love him even though he’s crazy,
Concocting senselessness endangering
The people that he thinks his deeds protects.”
Outside the children started shouting, laughing
As morning started up life’s old routines.
To listen to this section click on Touching a Dragon’s Mind.
Note: This is the eighteenth 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 17 to read the installment before this one. Click 19 for the following section.
Filed under Poetry, The Dragon Epic, Thomas Davis
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
fourwindowspress 