poems by rachel kellum
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Calculating a New Vocabulary of Joy
We multiply families of ravens,
stun words in cool gusts,
then lift, winged heat. I ramble
mathematically, waiting for a language,
croaking, ready to give up everything tertiary.
What primal number,
what rough cut square footage
expresses itself in our shared gaze?
What equals one mountain plus one man plus one woman
plus three habaneros sliced thinly, coughing steam,
sex and gasoline, gratitude dividing
into soft apologies to one tree for sinking nails
to hold prayer flags and all sentient beings?
How do two people become
one home in a flash? Quite simply.
The sky calculates it all like this:
One crisp ponderosa accepts you. I notice.
We sniff its neck. The moon squints
through its 2 am limbs upon our tangled sleep.
One cabin, our larger body, stirs
under twenty fingers. Its engine spills and fumes.
One decomposing granite hallway
takes our four-legged gait like seed,
grunts us new. Like this, teeth smiling.
We might be two parallel streams and the earth
is giving way between.
We can’t account rationally for the speed
of our lives’ glorious destruction
or the volume of water tearing through.
The solution is in the weep, the wound,
the rocky crack. Guess how
the clever juniper grew where it grew.
2013
Lady Tiresias Finally Speaks
Inaccessible
Dark secrets dilate me, winged.
Shhh. The flock’s due west.
2013
If You Can’t Chase It, Let It Chase You Home
On the run, nothing
refuses your long shadow.
Pavement or snow pile
your darkest shape is carved light.
2013
Says the Pond to the Canoe
I cannot stop
your silent glide,
the slicing paddle
through my glass.
Nor would I halt
the silken length
of gentle glancing
broken mirrors,
mine. I throw
my milliard
diamonds
as you
pass.
2013
Serendipity
There is
No backward
Serendipity.
The way is forward.
Not in the dirty martini.
Nor the green day.
Joy cannot be planned.
Some hands open
Only once just
This way.
Notice.
2013
The History of Light
If it takes 7,000 years
For the light of the Eagle Nebula
To reach me,
How long does it take
The unobserved light of my body
To reach you?
Someone told me
Yesterday all light is a picture
Of ancient history.
2013
Geshe-la Speaks of Measurement
…Cubits warp / For fear to be a king.
~ Emily Dickinson, “We never know how high we are”
We don’t need feet
Or meters in Tibet.
My mother gave me space
Between elbow and fingertip.
2013