You Are Here

I drive west to see the Jeffers Petroglyphs,
marks on a sloping rock comma
tucked into a shush of grass.
The prairie makes demands. I am late.
A wind question strafes my cheek.
Early people needed to answer this.
They knelt fast, eyes tearing, chipped at what
was hard to impress with shapes in it:
turtle, moose, buffalo, thunderbird.

A medicine man went head first down
the stone fontanelle, entered the dark
looking for what they’d all lose. It wasn’t his
to take. Time moved. When he found himself
sitting up top again, alone in the calm dawn,
he etched a hand with the relief he felt.
Then he walked home.

*The Jeffers Petroglyphs is a Native American rock art site owned
by the Minnesota Historical Society.

Five Things We Fear Most

A deer rises from the ditch
toe steps out on the county road
pauses crosses herself almost releases
but instead doubles back now there are two
they stand in your way as you plunge
forward no force to control what flickers
through now three deer together four five
you can’t keep a lovely doe in the woods
when she longs to escape the night
nor can you scatter the ones
entranced by oncoming light.

Weight or None

I’m out looking for birds.
The freeway hums, cars
travel a hard road
pressing down over
pliable ground pushing up.
Things break this way, soft
wins, but egrets ignore
the struggle. They fix
on what moves below
when standing in water,
on what presses against
skinny legs as legs fight back.
Even breathing, this conflict
between what offers itself
and what you take,
exquisite in its danger
its possibility.

Curious

what you might love: the distant sound
of a lawn mower after dinner, a dog barking,
a chorus of crickets and katydids
rising along the creek. Later the blush gold
lowering sun as it for a moment brushes
the generous curve of each apple on your tree.
Or, most of all, after dark in bed the welcome
cool night air, and the way sounds of evening
and dying light are enfolded within it.

My dedicated meditation practice is Quaker worship. We sit in silence every Sunday waiting for God to speak through us. Some mornings no one speaks. Some mornings several people speak. Ours is a mystical tradition, and this sense of mystery feeds my poetry mind. The method for our meditation, and the method I use to write, are one in the same. I sit in silence and open myself to words coming through me.

My chapbook of poems, The Truth About Water, was published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press. I taught at The Loft Literary Center for twenty years, and my poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. I live in Minneapolis.

Photo: Sue Kearns