poems by rachel kellum
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Designer Umbrellas
If umbrellas are daisies
and clouds, what is my head?
We tourists, for a moment,
give shelter to the boat.
We pay to point at mountains,
numb to the inner view:
Mountains, too, are parasols
along with this proud lake.
Even a field of stones
protects the under-nest.
Choose your ribbed shield.
How easy not to merge.
Over what precious thing do you open
and spread to avoid its getting wet?
2015
In response to Les Barta’s photoconstruction, Designer Umbrellas, exhibited at the CACE Gallery of Fine Art in Spring 2015 (my apologies for glare on the image)
Sedona Phenomena
Any arrangement of five could be you or me.
Make my head a violet petaled bloom,
a trail head sign, a twisted tree.
Your two arms serve as penstemon,
my legs two creosote. Still, my head
could simply be a head. Twenty years ago,
Sedona was my dream.
Your limbs were nearly shrubs then,
my left leg was a sign.
If clouds were bushes and moons,
my mother limbs were clouds.
Sedona loves to dream.
The carved sign tells you how to find
the overlooks and loops.
Shout from the spires and buttes,
from shadowlines of roofs:
You are Sedona’s dream.
What is your vantage? Where will you stop?
When do you finally open your robe,
unbutton your blouse, expose rocks?
They are smaller than you think,
so close, or possibly farther away,
receding atmospherically—
Sedona’s fading dream.
2015
in response to Les Barta’s photoconstruction, exhibited at the CACE Gallery of Fine Art in Spring 2015
Designer Radios
Press the button of the cloud.
It’s song a rusty truck
blaring absinthe green, Lautrec.
Press the button of her hand.
Finesse the station.
Who is talking?
A tree has its own buttons
that are not leaves.
Hairs press the breeze.
Record our singing.
Fast forward, reverse.
Pause the season.
If you must
control sound,
choose a CD.
Or play it real-time,
radio. Dial in.
Press me.
Even sky scrapers respond to touch.
The street has its own song
Inside your loafered feet.
Who or what
Presses what or whom?
How plays the dream?
2015
in response to Les Barta’s photo construction, exhibited at the CACE Gallery of Fine Art in Spring 2015
Dust and Sun Bathing 101
I’d seen hens do it countless times
and roosters, too—
scratch out dusty nests in dirt.
Flop onto their sides.
Kick out clawed feet.
Prop their heads awkwardly.
Raise dirt by flapping wings.
Puff their feathers.
Take in slow, yellow heat.
Almost sleep.
So when the new chicks
lost their fuzz,
ventured from hutch into private run,
why was I surprised
they did the same?
No one taught them how
to clean themselves.
Love the sun.
Shame a human.
2015
Farm Ponds
The farm pond gurgled
Like a chorus of stomachs
Waiting for dinner.
For three days it rained.
Pond became a fast river,
River, a new pond.
Each pond had a name
Only bullfrogs could pronounce.
They sounded the same.
Standing between ponds
We shook our heads in night’s song
Roaring stereo.
Pond Two rolled on south
Under roads to other fields.
Water flows downhill.
Some water stayed here.
Before red heifers came home,
Pasture drank that pond.
The first pond still shines
Just over the rise with ducks—
The sky’s own mirror.
The second pond roams
Green pasture, eating itself,
Watching me sit still.
2015
Rite
Outside it rained
and prayer flags
flew like magic carpets.
Lighting cracked
the night. We laughed
in silly play, a ritual.
Into my lucky limbs
four friends struck
earth with fists,
lit fire with friction,
spread rivulets of water
through my spine,
threw wind with finger tips
across my plains.
We spun like planets.
Took turns as moons.
I didn’t know my mother
had so many hands.
I didn’t know I was a kid
in need of them.
2015
Not Broody, but Dying
Four days after he found Geoffrey Greg Brown
sprawled dead
on her side in the run—blocking the door,
I found Rosie face down
under the roost, buff wings folded neatly
like a proper lady,
head tucked beneath herself like the curl
of a question mark.
2015
Elegy for Geoffrey Greg Brown, a Fine Hen
When the first chicken you ever loved
Dies of unknown causes
While you are out of town,
And your practical partner
Tells you he has tossed her
In the dumpster, do not judge him.
Pull her out when you return,
When time permits a burial.
Examine her brown plumage,
Recollect the story of her mystery,
How she joined this flock
From who knows where.
Marvel at the joy of unknown origin,
Clandestine breeds.
Remember how she squatted,
Stomped her feet for you
To stroke her velvet back?
Imagine a year of her brown eggs
Bloomed now in your musculature.
Notice in her current limpness
She was more than body—
Clever, friendly, generous bird
Full of electricity and hope.
How she would chase you
Carrying the compost bowl!
Remember her gentle beak
Stealing seed from your palm,
The way you wished the others
Would learn her etiquette?
She is lighter, smaller now.
Her head lolls side to side
On the walk to the shed,
Her eyes two shriveled sockets.
Where is the animal you loved?
You dig where water has run off
The roof of an old outbuilding
And made the ground soft.
Your shovel finds its way with ease.
Sing simple syllables over her,
Curb the urge to wish
Her constant ghostly presence.
Even chickens must move on.
Spread her perfect wing.
Try to take her feathers
With bare fingers.
When that fails, find scissors
In the kitchen.
Pluck two from the neck,
Cut two from the left wing
To share with your youngest son,
Who, like you, knows the power
Of a good name and called her Geoffrey
After you named her Greg Brown.
She never knew her names,
But Brown and Neruda
Were wrong about chickens.
Sit her up in her new nest.
Gather brown upon brown.
Set a log on end.
Promise to carve her name.
2015
with love and thanks to singer/songwriter,
Greg Brown, for the story after this song.