---------------------------------------
With or without you

This is the fear; sit with him,
Here. Nothing you must do, you say
Again, to yourself. Nothing. Simple,
But here you go, dusting,
Arranging knick-knacks above
This too-narrow bed while he
Stands there, just inside the door
He’s closed behind him, hat in hand.
You suspect he could wait all day,
in fact, will. With a toothbrush you could
Clean this entire house.

There is something he wants you to do.
That‘s what he said last time you met,
When he held your face in his hands
Like a father. You remember that moment.

Your vision blurs, you grip the gathered
Feathers, continue dusting, while your heart
Turns without you.

Ellen Marie Metrick, 4.21.11
-------------------------------------------
One word at a time
                ~ for Earth
Health is a hue of truth;
its brightest blue, its green,
a gold tooth in the mountain
a trial by fire in the human
race. All who have entered
find running least effective;
standing in place a pace
that makes fast strides
towards deep ties.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.22.11

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Not up to us
“How could I have lived so long / If I had not known that day / Was bound to come in the end?” – Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

We build our castles in the grand style,
Manicured gardens and imagined moats
From inside our dark homes; we tell ourselves
We will find day when we find the way out.
In that imagined light, we see how tall we’ll sit
On our glowing steed, how our armor
Will glint and shine after stooping,
crouching with hardscrabble arachnids,
ears punched with the crunch and stutter
of this web, sound of doubt strangling desire.

The fisherman knows the castles are bait;
caught fish will be head-struck, gutted,
Eaten around the fire at dark.

What if this seaweed forest
Is just where we live, a tunnel in the lava
Flow, and in the end
It is not a dangling salmon egg
But the current itself — even weeds
Bow to its power — the current
that one day pulls us
from under-boulder dark
into sun-glittered stream.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.23.11
--------------------------------------------

All day rain, snow, clouds
Break. From the corner fencepost,
Clearly, meadowlark.
4.24 Elle M
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The boy, the girl, the dogs

It’s choice
Each moment
To be here, all stride
And pant and lifting voice
Saying what it is we want
As if we’ve never known
As if we hadn’t been the ones
To pile the brush and duff
Of story, of i-don’t-know,
Of I am afraid.
The stalks of this earth
Are sprouting, the wombs
Will soon fill, green become
A weight, skies clear.
EMM 4.25.2011
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Feeling

It’s so messy
       a tangle viney
                windy
       a tessera of bailing twine
                orange session with wine
here, take an end
                    make words
          one more method
          a harness for excuses
          not to make them look beautiful
make us look beneath
desire
where
stars still guide us
emm 4.26
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Stories are just pins
Holding up a dress as big
As this star-strewn sky
(Let's take it off, look
each other in the eye)
emm 4.27
 ------------------------------------
Almost May

The window above the kitchen sink
Crowded with snowflakes like cold children
Wanting in. Red. A solo mango winks,
Then stares.

4.28.11. EMM
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Lunch in spring storm

More complaints than snowflakes today
As green spears poke through heavy wet while
Golden currant flowers shine small flames

To the north and the west, a wall
Of storm churns dark, horizon gone
To seed

In my red bowl, last fall’s
Hawkswing mushrooms (Hidenum imbricatum)
Gathered with whistling kids
Nudge beet greens I plucked yesterday
In the hailstorm from my garden
Store-bought yellow squash
And miso for stock; nothing ever
Tasted so good.

4.29 (from 4.26 lunch) EMM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is that what woke me?
This bud of a moon rising,
frost at 5 a.m.
emm 4.30