A ContemplationMy body is no longer my own. It contains a
sprout like a fiddlehead fern frond, curled
inward on itself.
Microscopic cells mystically multiply
with fervor, their intention known only
to themselves.
While I breathe, while I sleep, whether
I churn like a river or remain a placid lake,
this body has
Its own mission. Summer is coming.-Kathryn Harper
she is soft and gray
and likes to play, binking and
zooming around.
she snacks on flowers,
a sentient lawnmower
wherever grasses abound.-Kathryn Harper
Low Winter Sun
The sun peersover my shoulderthrough the window.Winter sunlight arrivesdeferentially -- or perhapscasually, like a cat decidingto settle for a nap againsta poet on the sofa.-Kathryn Harper
The blue sky, hiddenwind painting clouds in brushstrokescrows, a swath of dots --winter is tracing its nameI wait patiently for spring.-Kathryn Harper
The Library, Mid-WinterThe library chair holds the shape of a body
better than the body holds the news.
Outside, the rain is a gray slant of percussion,
drumming a rhythm for a march starting
somewhere south of our borders.
We ate eggs while discussing our work
of mending, healing hearts and minds.
We called out each other's blind spots
to examine, completely safe within
our connection of love and respect.
But it’s time to undress the Christmas tree,
to stow the baubles and lights, yet I dawdle.
The branches hold beloved memories
that visit once a year. There is no guarantee
I will unpack them again.
I think of the earth, waiting for the pine,
waiting for me -- to be turned back into
something that helps the flowers grow.-Kathryn Harper
Jagged peaks meetice-capped glaciers;
braided rivers weave
across windswept plains.
-Kathryn Harper
What if I told you
that the carpet of lights
below an ascending plane
are sparks of souls,
our ancestors visiting
to light our way through life?-Kathryn Harper
Recognition
Playing truth or dare an hour before daylight
among the bean trees, I encounter a stranger at the gate.
When I ask what she is doing, she replies,
“Composing a life.” She seeks to answer the question,
“Is there no place on earth for me?”
I ask how she will know the answer, and she says
she will track her progress in the stone diaries.
She has an amazing grace, this girl with a pearl earring
wearing borrowed finery, and I want to know more.
I ask with an open heart, open mind, what it is she seeks.
She wants to understand the savage inequalities,
to have a reckoning with the fact that she lives
in a world where the poisonwood bible increasingly
becomes the rule of law. She wants to help people
to stop running with scissors and enjoy the perfection
of the morning.We are surrounded by landscapes of wonder, if we
would only make the effort to see differently.
She in turn asks what I seek. I reply that I want
the courage to be, to cast a slender thread
of hope into the sea, the sea of humanity.
I want to plant new seeds of contemplation,
embrace the grace in dying. I want to
know the mystery of tying rocks to clouds.
From her angle of repose under oleander,
jacaranda, the magnificent spinster listens.
I tell her she has a beautiful mind, that
I can see the molecules of emotion swirling in her.
She tells me that I am a succulent wild woman,
that I have zen under a wing. She reminds me
that art is a way of knowing and solitude
a return to the self.
Then we part, blessing each other with traveling
mercies, with a promise to meet again
at the healing circle in Gilead.-Kathryn Harper
This poem was a little exercise that I later learned is a form called a Cento, but in this case I used titles of books I have read to create an entire experience. I will share the books here:
She Said HelloShe said 'Hello, I’m diggingsand nests' and handedout shovels.Seagulls lurked nearbyshouting manic laughterkeeping an eye openfor unattended food.Farther along the beach,six shrieking dervishesflirt with the water’s edge.And the kelp garlandsstrewn across rockshost a caucus of starlings.-Kathryn Harper
