Category: Poetry

Seen Like the Sea

Jaclyn2 Comments

A poem for my daughter on her third birthday

This girl, who was so eager to be on land that she burst into the world before she could breathe,

so sensitive that her skin couldn’t be touched, encased like a museum curio,

who gave me a second belly button and a new name,

who says, “Oh, hi, Mr. Butterfly” when he returns from winter and loves puddles too deep 

for her boots,

who hunts the forest for bones but comes home with bouquets of labrador tea,

who feeds cranberry leaves to new friends from her palm like they are baby birds,

who flits her fins in the bathtub and says “Mommy, I’m a mermaid!” 

so that I whisper to my husband, “But how did she know?”

who stands on the shore and says, “Ocean. Mama. Home.” and I am not sure if she’s 

talking to me, about me, or to the sea, but I feel more seen than I have ever felt.

This girl makes me feel like maybe I’m doing something right.

My First Alaska (Summer 2005)*

JaclynLeave a comment

It started with the lake

and the spruce trees leaned

in for a better look.

My toes wandered

into the water,

which threw out

glacial-silt blue

and reflected a grey sky.

Toes exploring further,

ahead of myself so that

the snow-born water crept

up my legs and I was soon

on my back.

Mushrooms popped tops

of heads up through

moist dirt to peep.

My toes led the way,

becoming glacial themselves

as the Alaskan current

carried me out of the lake and to

the river.

I flowed.

Mist began to fall

and I became

a blue totem:

beaver knees,

eagle mound,

moose-antler breasts,

grizzly-bear hair.

My skin crystallized,

forming snowflake stars

over my fingers,

shins,

then finally

my middle.

Cracked.

As a close summer sun

came out

my blue star

skin melted

and I became the Kenai.

*As I was packing and preparing for my move, I found this little number that I had written my first time in Alaska.  Revisiting it after 8 years, I can see quite a few revisions I would want to make, but I wanted to post it in its original.   I’m wondering how my impressions and experience of Alaska this time around will compare with my memories.

listening to icicles (Colorado. November 2002.)

JaclynLeave a comment

listening to icicles

they giggle softly

dripdripdrip

drop

drap

rods of burning cold

tensing their muscles

to break free of the shingles

crackackackackackle

they blind with the light

of a reflected winter sun

and mirror the calm

of soothing soft snow

blipblipblip

blop

blup

slowly melting now

making waves of ice

beneath them

to be suspended from

the sky the snow

anything but the roof

buckleuckleuckleuckleuckle

.               .               .

floating among the snowflakes

little brothers of ice

the ground beneath

comes near

the icicles reach

trying to embrace

crassssssssssssssssh

I want to feel (Colorado. Winter 2002.)

JaclynLeave a comment

I want to feel

your arms

spinning me as we dance

until the sun rises

and we must

fall as autumn

rays sneak over mountain tops

and caress our faces

lulling us to lay down

in grass sweating dew

 

I want to feel

your chest

sleeping pressed

against

my back

assuring

me of your presence

with no sheets between us

as I tell the secrets

you knew when we met

 

I want to feel

your hand

cradling my head

tangled

in my hair

so that he cannot leave

until my strands relax

safe

and let him go

Agaonidae (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

JaclynLeave a comment

Part I

It began with the fig. It will end with the fig as well. She was my mother, the womb from which I was born and she is my home. She gave life to the forest, feeding gibbons and hornbills, civets and barking deer. But only I am of her.

Before my time, she attracted a body swollen with eggs that soon would grow into me, my sisters and brothers, and him. This swollen wasp body forced her way home, losing antennae and wings in her struggle to enter the fig. They danced together, a dance which would end in death; which is to say, a dance ending in new life. The wasp would not make it out alive. She implanted her eggs into the flesh of my mother, knowing all along it was only a trap.

Part II

I had barely opened my eyes and he was there. It was my lifes first movement to reach for him, tiny legs reaching for his tiny gentle body. Though the fig was our womb, it was he who gave birth to me. He had eaten through the walls of the egg holding me in. For now, I could stretch my wings, and now I knew of a world outside of myself. My wings wrapped around him, enclosing us both, creating a tiny screen to shield from the hundreds of other wasp bodies performing the same frenzied ritual. The flowers of the fig caressed us and showered us with pollen, the holy water of creation. There was no such thing as close enough.

and i left him there

Part III

And just like that everything came undone. My whole world exploded in spirals of starry pollen, glistening with the reflection of a sun I had never seen. The powdery gold coated my abdomen and legs, turned my black hair blonde. Rattan palms turned their fanned gazes upward. Macaques tilted curious heads in my direction. The butterflies all were still. The whole forest held its breath as it watched life’s fairy-dust rain down from my mother fig.

Under these vigilant eyes, my sisters and I fly skyward, the new dilettantes of the forest, in a synchronized ballroom-dance search for purpose. Fig-pollen for lipstick and rouge, we shine. Our lacy wings make us the angels of new life. Drip-tip leaves offer their hands in marriage, strangler figs try to tie us down. But we know we are meant for more than that. We are swollen with the children of the forest.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleslenobel/ for the amazing picture!

Even in Florida (Florida. Winter 2005.)

JaclynLeave a comment

 

Even in Florida

it gets cold enough

this time of year

that the leaves are pulled away

from their trees

with the acorns and pinecones

to explore the world alone.

The trees are left

with Spanish moss

as their only garments.

elderly left naked,

except for the gray in their hair.

The wandering leaves

make a cushion for my barefeet

as the lake fills my thoughts.

The water comes lower than ever now

and the lake looks still, tired.

Fall(ing) Breeze (Colorado. Fall 2002.)

JaclynLeave a comment

 

 

I

 

This autumn wind is gold tinted

from the dust, remains

of a dry summer floating

in the air, pulled

into my nostrils, and settling

(for) on windows that have not been

opened in months.

 

Or maybe the wind is

doing his own interpretation

of the yellow wilting leaves

of trees happily surrendering

to sleep, well-earned, long awaited;

for these aspens have not slept in months.

 

But it cannot be –

the wind does not sleep and

he does not happily surrender.

 

II

 

The leaves are tossed

in a migrating gust

letting go to dance in a breeze

that could take them anywhere.

Let go, for even the ground is better

than someone else’s limbs.

 

How can these fair-haired leaves

dance freely if someone else

is spinning them?

Say goodbye to your tree.

The restless wind is calling you.

 

 

 

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/vbenedetti/ on flickr for the photo! Grazie!

Apsara (Thailand. Summer 2010.)

Jaclyn5 Comments

Hidden beneath an alluvial sunset

and longtail-tossed waves,

she gives herself to the Mother Water,

sinking into riverweed and muck.

Bejeweled with leeches and crabs,

her hair is tangled with water

hyacinth roots and as their leaves

become sails, pulled by the wind, so she too goes.

Rice barges swollen with freight

pass overhead;

the riverbed darkens and glows,

darkens and glows.

Her lotus-leaf eyes emanate green dew

as her fingers flit up and back

telling the story of fountains and gusts

through the silted sweet-water.

The rocking hulls of boats above

tap out the rhythm of the Grand Duke’s dance.

Openbill storks sing along as the dusky light

begins to fill with vapor and lightning.

As the percussion quickens,

so does her nymphish undulation.

Her hand runs over a freshwater ray,

lightening its warrior’s load.

The River of Kings is stirring

and the air becomes thick.

The lines between waves

and falling droplets blur.

She spins her epic daily dance,

mesmerizing gods and algae alike.

Her shimmies scatter wriggling bubbles

eroding the cares of  heroes and prawn.

The downpour erupts

into an orchestra,

whistling through frangipanis

and strumming succulent vines.

She careens with water monitors

as her bracelets chime and her silky skirts rise.

She fingers orchids floating

on the co-centric ripples of the Chao Praya.

Mangosteens drop

and dragon fruit roar.

The cacophony of the monsoon

coaxes pregnant trees to bear their fruit.

Banana flowers quake in the wind

and watch as her forehead crests.

The freshet pulls her upward

and her eyes meet with mangoes.

Veils rise into wings.

Air and water merge.

She is the estuary below.

She is the storm above.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/7147684@N03/ for the photo!

Resurrection Ferns (Florida. Summer 2005.)

JaclynLeave a comment

It never did rain.

The ferns waited,

their spines hooked

over themselves as they knelt,

trembling and praying

that the sky

would not be afraid

to open up

to them and weep.

They lined themselves in rows,

a whole parrish

clinging to an oak

which could not resist

the pull

of a soft bed.

The resurrection ferns

held their spored breaths,

waiting for the day when

the oak would itself rise.

They repeated their visions

amongst themselves:

the oak will ascend and lead and guide,

pull himself free

of the nails of gravity

and escape death

for he is more than a man.

Yet all kings fall

and the ferns may wander,

seek out their own

source of water.

Or they may be still

kneeling, praying, waiting

for a rain that doesn’t fall.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanaia/ for the beautiful photo!

Moon on a Lamppost (Florida. Spring 2002.)

JaclynLeave a comment

We

bathed

in amber

last night

getting stuck

with mosquitoes

under an orange sheen

which made things

not illuminated, but

notdark.

So, surrounded

by a personal 11 pm we sat

under a lampshade of  notdark

and tried to get our feelings

out.

Even sitting back to back,

empty bookends, we held orange

light between us

a sinister glow.

I could see that nothing hid beneath its gleam,

no beady-eyed monsters lurked

in the harvest colored bushes,

but I could also see only shapes,

as if my eyes were taking silent hours

to adjust to the light on Crescent Road.

That tiny orange                              kept me from being

moon on a lamppost                     scared and kept me from seeing

you.