poems by rachel kellum
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The Cricket, after Hafiz
The cricket in my closet
called all night
to his Beloved.
How does one sleep
through such high
pitched prayer?
I awoke alone
in sweet exhaustion,
my Beloved everywhere.
2011
Guest Poet: fey
Our father
who in the name of heaven should call to us but Sister
living somewhere between hiway 85
and kingdom come. she called, trembling. and we
will meet her where
earth as is heaven Three of us united for a day o’er
bread veggies, and rice
our first slumber party in
50 a year. laughing.crying about
food cravings, vacations, illness,
family history, swept secrets, sad eyed
photos
forgiveness
sins talking all at once
listening for once
tapping at gnarled paternal trunks
dreading the dim seeping wound
peeling back bark as night falls
hearing muffled snap of dark sap
lead us into temptation of hatred and anger, incrimination
we coo, a Trinity, we soothe:
delivered from Evil he is no Danger to us now.
for we are
The Power of wind quelled quaking aspens and
The Glory of tall wild grasses.
We keen in a
Hallowed sorrow circle
the plea of
our father a distorted lament
done
forever.
2011
Sutra For Poets Who Would Be Buddhas
Stitch shut the million mouths of books.
Find a smiling teacher, still alive.
Become as trusting as a child or bird.
(Stop flinching, doctors, masters, sleeping
children, dear hearts, perched on the edge
of your self, dreaming of wingless flight.)
We will not be graded on a curve or for creative twist.
There is no need to be the teacher’s pet. (Stop fawning.)
We must do what is taught and only trust at first;
experience has not yet bred our confidence.
Notice your hesitation. Notice you are a mess.
We’ve read hundreds of books and still are fully dressed.
Listen. Follow, just this once. It can’t hurt to try.
Proud EuroAmericanScholarPoetJudeoChristianCapitalists,
We’ve believed the books we bought are enough!
But know this: they have never walked through doors
of scorching anger or burned with blue desire.
Books have no faces, sex, hands, breasts or beating hearts!
(Secretly, we believe in bellies more than alphabets.)
Here is the hard part, the poet’s heresy:
Stop worshipping words,
especially your own, for just a moment,
for many moments. Every morning for life.
(Here they come again! again! atomic cockroach words!
ever waxing gibbous words! whispering, spoiled
school girl words! billions of blinding sunrise words!)
Regardless of what the Good Book says,
the Word is not your flesh. Of course, it is, but isn’t.
It is wind. Just like flesh, but trickier. More subtle.
Flesh remembers before words do.
Pain lodges first in flesh.
Start here. Look.
All that pain. Incessantly we’ve talked
about it thinking it will help. It doesn’t.
(So you were dragged to a small cow town,
so you broke your braided vow,
so you gave up your child’s now now
for a fuller bank account.
See how the words spin axle deep?)
Words can’t talk you out of you.
Stop talking to yourself.
Get beneath your marvelous story.
Learn the colors of your ancient winds.
Watch them swirl and pass.
You will cry in your bed
when the sky finally falls upon you,
into you, through you,
when you realize neither your own shining idea
of enlightenment, nor your best poem,
nor your oldest moldy book was enough
to save you from your handmade map,
your precious night, your one-eyed fear.
We’ve been so proud. We lost years reading,
lulled into thinking we got Jack’s It.
Dry your tears. It isn’t in books. It is you. Sit.
Sit on the ground in front of someone (not me, friend)
who can introduce you to your own mind.
Not your smart ego that bosses your dumb one around
(you’ve already met a million times, Tenzin said),
but the sky-mouthed one beneath,
laughing through your stories’ clouds.
One story: I didn’t want a teacher.
But now you have one. Surrender.
He knows the sky-mouthed one in you
inside before you do, will teach you:
spine straight, neck long, hands folded
jaw loose, tongue relaxed, eyes closed, heart wide.
He points to your wordless, lineless lines.
You sigh. You see.
Then you become the sky book you read.
The key is familiarity. Sit.
Under stars and buzzing alley wires,
in the dark morning’s artificial lights,
in your grim windowless office,
over the sunken sorrowed grave,
next to your sleeping lover, aging dog,
any where, every day. There is time.
The more often you read yourself
the sooner your stories fly off the page.
Words become locust sound and starling waves.
Pain becomes five dancing prism lights,
every one a grinning doorless doorway
into quickstarred space, your heartbeat sky.
Then you realize the fuss you made
about bowing to a teacher was a waste.
When you bow to him, you bow
to your own seamless cosmos nature.
He knew this from the start and
tricked your pride. Humble now, you pray
to your own clear mind. You are the teacher.
You are the book beyond flames.
You can no longer put yourself down.
2011
Look between breaths
Tiny seed of stillness on the peak.
Tiny seed of silence in the valley.
We are born enormous space in each,
edgeless gods sucked into a wave.
2011
the morning I return to fall’s offices
1
I do not fret over morning glories
winding around grapes and raspberries, grateful
for those who bloom despite discriminating pluck.
2
In hope of late summer opening,
I clip off dead heads
to feed my lower tiny buds.
3
Tomatoes raise their arms
in perpetual tsa lung.
I try to follow along, head heavy with fruit.
4
Before sunrise, yarrow fronds stand long-spined.
Pumpkins open wide, strong hands.
Late riser, I know what August sun will do by noon.
2011
Sweet Betsy
Dark Corral, by Craig Johnson
co-written with Fey Witt
Never did I intend
To pull away
It is just
what my people do
Inconstant, unsettled
Unpredictably
I
move toward what is easiest
fool’s gold
Someone else’s dream
A tintype of mountain stream
It isn’t easy
this worry of losing
and getting lost
I should be used to it all
by now
Piker that I am
Fists in my pockets
fists around my heart
Crumbling, crumbling
past dust to powder
I sift, I scatter
I offer you the wind
2011
Reading You
Write all
you sense
upon clear
strips, line
by line.
Lay each
one upon
the next,
hold this
stack up
to sky—
try to
read it.
Give up.
Be read
by sky.
2011
The Tomato Sutra
Driven from the growing shape of morning on the red stone patio,
called by the mulched path between woman-sized tomato plants,
I took my seat to breathe in early August shade.
To the left of the path, three plants. One: an heirloom Cherokee Purple
whose child nearly bursts out of its name next to a smaller green twin.
My fingers thrill against the give of its plump readiness, but I must wait
one more day for Sage, my own purpling daughter, to return. I want to see
what this strange fruit does to the shape of her eyes and face.
And of two Romas, only one of their sons approaches red in a sea
of green brothers. But what a sea! I dream of thawing winter salsa.
And then, because there is left, there is always right, on the right side
of this path is a family of Caspian Pinks. Queens of mazed branches full and broad,
blossoms promised high in lofty reach. Down low, no blooms or tiny fruits!
Midway, a few shriveled flowers inside inner architectures of green.
Of four plants only two diminutive green globes! But what generous shade!
I tell myself they must be late bloomers, like my own slow breasts
(how I prayed!), my own slow living, finally tall, full figured alphabet
putting out prayers above the cage, empty with promise, while others—
look at you dazzling beings!—already heavy with purple and red! I wait.
This is the Sutra of Cherokees Purples, Romas and Caspian Pinks!
May every summer’s last blast of heat bring the least of these awake into the world.
Everything empty staggers toward a steady ripening, a delicious fleeting fall.
On all sides, may the perfect wisdom of this mantra be proclaimed:
tadyatha, mato mato, to om mato, to om om mato, bodhi svaha!
So, noble poets, gardeners, sons and daughters,
we should train in the profound perfection
of wisdom in this way, and rejoice!
2011
Who Shows Up Next
in answer to Rosemerry's question
When Defensiveness meets Pain crouching
behind you, shining red, bare skinned, seared
by expectation, her shield falls in a clamor
at his feet. She pulls off gloves finger by finger,
lifts the shapeless burlap, leaden over head,
exposes chafed arms and breasts, a heart
beating through invisible flesh. A sacred heart.
Pain shifts to get a closer look. She wants to fold
her arms across her chest but lets them fall,
wedges steel toes against each heel, and
with great effort, births her blistered feet.
The mask is last to go, and Pain jolts
in surprise. There is a hidden eye in her
forehead no mask is built for.
She says, My name is really Honesty.
Even though she is sadly smiling
in her own red skin, Pain cannot
embrace her right away. He blinks.
Tears sting the places they fall.
She waits for salt to do its work.
Sometimes it’s the only salve we have.
2011