Fall 2004, Volume 22.1

D M Gordon

D M Gordon, Phi Beta Kappa, MM from Boston University, is Writer-In-Residence at Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is poetry editor for Patchwork. Her poems have appeared as a finalist for the Pablo Neruda Award in Nimrod. She has published in The Comstock Review, The Berkshire Review, and others.

Saltspring, September 10, 2001

    Memento Vitalitas

       The need to know how the breeze the rock
lost in a day
       how the arch of a foot placed on a stone breast

                      the cupped palms of waves
            the need to know how
                      the sea snuffling at sand

               how tired waves like dandelions
       held too long in a child's hand
               the need

                           of invisible moss without touching
                the need to know how
                           the rose hips on low bushes

                              how the greyblues
                the rose the rust and jade
                              how the black dog

                       swimming away
           the need to know
                        how the quarreling crows and gulls

                          how the limp snails
               separate from their holds
                           how the aching stone

                                    wedged in the fissure
                          the sticky sap
                                 of sea purses

                                       as the tide ebbs
                                             then ebbs

Perfect Pitch

The perfect pitch of blackbird cocks
mounted rhythmical as fence posts
in the marsh, calling
        take me
                    (I am the consummation
                    of all red-shouldered blackbirds
                    who've seen the sun )
        take me
                    (I'll draw from you a choir
                    with shining wings;
                    I'll have you for who you are)
        take me
the spring sun starting to drain color from the cattails
the shallow water shuddering
        take me
                    (I know you—
                    waiting at the wood's edge
                      quick-eyed and still;
                    I will fulfill and fill you)
        take me
                    (there's only one worthy passion
                    and it shakes this clawful of grass)

I've been down this path before
and turn before the skimming flights.

 

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