Wood distressed and rubbed;
favored inks
scratched veins
and the rainbow runaways
over the beating hearts of trees.
A water conjurer
in lace tide. a lace wind.
Totem boards of wax and wood,
small beads of pathways. a necklace of maps.
the contours of counties and continents.
a rivulet. a snake.
“We think we ain’t got nothing. What we got We keep without knowing.
Things seem lost. But they come back.
We get them back somehow.”
Malaga and Sapelo.
fish and crawfish.
nightblack face and dayclean hands.
The closed mouths.
Morning glories open in haint light.
three braids
blue calico dress;
broom bursting flower vines like veils.
Blue heaven. blue cyclone. blue peace. blueblack woman
in the circle skirt of mercy. blueblack woman
her clean head,
shoulders smooth.
flexile sheen of her arms is the ocean. the firmament. the moon-night.
Fish mother of twelve; carrying
the cupped, stroked world in empty
eloquent hands.
And the judgment house is a guitar
strung over the open heart of a man;
squared and pointed east.
two mountains in his soul.
one big eye one eye slit a little.
And sweet water.
And sweet grass.
Moss curtain rises above the creek
and the egret
and the coal-skinned woman
wade in the water,
look over there…
Rachel E. Harding, PhD | Denver, Colorado | 2001