Fall 2004, Volume 22.1
Poetry
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.