poems by rachel kellum
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Token of a different time,
Star shine on a sandy foothill trail
When I was new, and you,
And love was new and opened
A book, pointing at your name.
Wildflower when not a threat,
I found you rare, a mountain gift.
How could I know otherwise?
Twenty years later, new land and life,
You volunteered twice in my garden.
Writer of my history, I couldn’t
Pull you, why? Once, you opened me.
Confused, I counted myself lucky
That you rose from flagstone
Cracks. I let you live, celebrated
Each morning star, until you flew
And flew in my benign neglect. Oops
And oops and oops and, well, goodbye.
Stately lanced cousin of dandelion,
Giant puffs of parachuting seeds, you
Whose bloom likes to sleep by noon,
Resolutely close your umbrellas.
And when you open, you truly open.
Premonition dawns like a slow leaf.
A year will bring its sunny lesson.
Now I see what you can do untamed:
Restless, grow a family in the wind.
Mother just like me, escape artist,
Taproot deep, stem easy to break.
I dug and dug now dig and dig,
Unable to eat your oyster root,
Having mostly grown in one dog’s
Favorite squatting plot. But still,
I could have saved your progeny,
Those inside sequestered beds,
Dog free, chopped thin and tossed
Into last night’s cast iron pan, friends
Of other more domestic roots.
But work was hot, the shovel
Sharp, without imagination. Wilted
In a wheelbarrow, sunburnt, I eat
You only with these toothless teeth.
2019
Today’s Numbers
9:50 am, 6/6/19,
539% snowpack, 60°,
13 hours of forgotten water,
42 minutes on the cushion,
4 hues of potted petunias,
2 Western Tanagers in the birdbath,
1 spent cherry blossom in my hair.
2019
What is a Dream?
Is it a rabbit smashed
upon the road?
A singing trash can
or love sick toad?
A flicker knocking
on a pine?
A teen grown numb
on violent vines?
Is it pouring milk
into an alpine stream?
The kettle’s climbing
morning scream?
The grass above
Poe’s nevermore?
Or is it just this
dusty bamboo floor?
14 Februrary 2019
So Much Water
She woke up her lover
when her womb like a flesh water
balloon burst warm and trickled
onto the sheet. On her side
she slowly scooted feet first
out of bed. Following her across
the yellow pine flooring, soaking
a green towel dark, he yawned.
There’s so much water.
In the cracked window
behind the night, a bowl
overturned, poured white.
Yes, she said.
29 July 1999
dug up for Alison, as she waits
Meditation on Birthdays
Split into a multiplying
whole.
Split once more.
Exit a body.
Guttural commemoration.
The parting
of flesh from flesh.
Complete dependence on earth’s
insistent urge:
grow, assist the growing
by splitting time,
splitting food, splitting the mind
into two bodies.
Call that mother. Rare father. God.
Forget their births like air.
Call that
your final lover
gentle scout of the coming year
oracle of aches
celebrator of flyaway greys
who remembers
the miracle of your life
before you, slow to wake, do,
whispers
Happy birthday, Love.
2019
Mosquito Yoga
Challenger Peak blinding white is dreaming
of mosquitos famous black swarms
chasing me whining down dirt streets
slapping air the local yogi once said offer
your body to their stings nude willingly
let them feed they will agree
to leave you alone all summer I have no
faith in blood suckers’ good nature
forgive me last year our first here
no snow no mosquitos just smoke
I won’t lie I was glad to garden mosquito
free no silent back of the knee stings
or tiny needle songs I was glad but now
the snow more snow People can’t last
outside even for minutes! What the hell
is going on with Global Warming? an idiot
tweets Please come back fast, we need you!
as though warm earth only means
heat Challenger named for that famous
wreck lost teacher brilliant frost in my living
room window storm after storm
will begin the slow trickle Crestone creeks
will weave into mosquito songs build
mosquito condos I will stay indoors
or slather scented oils desperate poisons
on my skin to weed my garden
grateful the valley woke up from my
selfish mosquitoless dream and
towhees will drink drink drink their tea
2019
Half Sister
her job
is witness
let them
have their
roughly happy
tales of
a father
despite her
sad ones
they think
her life
is full
of lies
their stories
allow them
to feel
right righteous
for hiding
his will
(keep it)
confirm he
nor they
ever cared
enough about
his first
forever family
to provide
for their
well- being
both sets
of stories
lie some-
where in
be- tween
are always
have always
been true
all all
loved and
feared no
heard and
learned him
how to
live split
to forgive
2019
Advice for Mothers in One and a Third Haiku
After you’ve watched films
recommended by your son,
don’t talk about them.
You’ll likely be wrong.
2019
Advice in Increments of 17 Syllables
Mothers: don’t make light
of your earnest son’s mistake.
Better to be stone.
Impenetrable.
If you don’t talk about it,
it never happened.
Perhaps silence heals.
It can. Buried deep, alive,
pain speaks other ways.
2019