poems by rachel kellum
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bless the white haired teacher
~for Gary Bloemker
who fills his classroom with stones,
waterfalls and dashing fishes,
who built a golden castle full of books,
stars and pillowed caves
for my son to learn
that earth is the best page
ever written and
school is not a place—
though what a room!—
but a state of curious
grace and bloom.
2009
Vision of the Great Mantra
The lazy, dozing deities
and dull knived killers
of my body
the whining pin throats
and misled, missled gods
of my body
the leg humping dogs
and hand wringing humans
of my body
wear every single cell—
each a full body halo
gone orb rainbow
in the great eye
of my body.
There is no place within
I can’t wake. I walk
through the congregation
of my body
like a forest
where everyone sits
under trees half grinning.
2012
Linguistics Lesson
In the dark in my bed
too late for a full night’s rest
my nine year old son
confessed quietly, brightly:
tomato and potato
have always confused me
but now I see their beginnings
are cousins
and their endings
are twins.
I woke up in the morning’s dark
knowing this is true for all
our beginnings and ends
and touched his sleeping head.
2012
Call It What You Will
We’ve prayed with folded arms and mirrored palms
Prostrated, foreheads stinging on the dirt
Meditated silence into sky
We’ve whirled in white toward the inner still
Arranged stones, feathers, candles, shells, and called
Cast love spells and stirred hopeful steaming pots
We’ve drummed the huge heart down dark tunnels
Sweat our prayers dripping into earth
Sung, arms wide, hands loud and mouths great Os
We’ve danced in flaring circles, swayed alone above the hole
Strummed every animal and earthborn string to song
Interlaced our lips and tongues and breasts and bones
We’ve walked the humming walk up every mountain
Rummaged numbered pages with blind fingers
Scribbled obscure words curled outside lines
We’ve painted, planted more than we can see or seed
Gathered lost scraps and sewn them into one
Wielded every kind and lethal tool
All to feel the all move through.
2012
Love! Love! Are you? Are you lost?
Again the owl asks from its unknown tree who are you.
The night between each star asks where is he.
The moon sees geese and asks where are my teeth.
Your heart divided in four walks around outside your body
on two mountains, through two cities and asks where am I,
where is my blood, and your blood answers.
I am a small ocean in a small white house with no tide.
A still sea ignorant of its own circumference and depth,
blind fishy eyes floating through warped blue like mirrors.
The circular edge of salt says nothing.
When three parts of the heart return, there’s more
pushing than receiving blood, lub louder than dub.
Each chamber gathers salt like a cork stopped jar,
white as the moon’s teeth, for safe keeping, for the kind
of healing that sings, we’re here, we’re here, and stings.
2011
title from “buffalo on the wing,” by la fey wit
Women 101
When your wilted beloved
hands you, if you are lucky
her tattered Manual of Me
a subtle, small print read
or worse, you’ve put this off
and wilted has turned
to loss, shaking in your face
her Idiot’s Guide to Keeping Me
full of tough love slang
and hand drawn cartoons,
it’s easy. Don’t put it off. Read.
Clean and rearrange your tools.
Fine-tune. Not her. You.
Notice she is reading yours too.
2011
Sky Gazing
Great
unclasped
necklaces
search
the sky.
There
is no
great
neck
to rest
and
mend
upon.
Geese
do not
know
what a
necklace
is
or
beauty
or what
their
honking
cannot
mean
to a
human
woman
a
Buddhist
woman
hearing
them
from bed
inside
on
Christmas
eve.
2011
to Ruth Stone, so old and so new
I want to hear you more, mottled
prophet of wild eyes searching air
I want to be one foot from your
stained folding chair, heavy worded
hands waving, begging, rubbing words
into your white hair and my ears
like a quiet wind blowing blue squall
stomping up and down ancient stairs
upon which we crumble and climb
into blaring white sky and fall through
a hush of soft green needles
where your words play our grooves
like a record scratching love love love
and we swear that is what we are made for
2011
in response to Ruth Stone
Radiances
may it come that all the radiances
be known as our own radiances
~The Tibetan Book of the Dead
As we eat, may we come to see
this generous bird is the seed
of our own earthbound flight,
these potatoes, our own
bright familial roots, reaching
through what is heavy and dark
to one another,
this corn, the sun’s teeth shining
in our own mouths,
these creamy beans, the liquid
marriage of everything green
in our own hearts and busy fingers,
this bread, our own ever-leavening
toward golden,
this pumpkin pie, the eight-spoked
wheel turning and turning us true,
this table, the mirror of our own
abundance upon which your faces
become mine, and we feast on
each other’s delight.
2011