For Lucy

For Lucy, Who Came First by Marilyn L. Taylor

She simply settled down in one piece right where she was,
in the sand of a long-vanished lake edge or stream--and died.
—Donald C. Johanson, paleoanthropologist


When I put my hand up to my face
I can trace her heavy jawbone and the sockets
of her eyes under my skin. And in the dark
I sometimes feel her trying to uncurl
from where she sank into mudbound sleep
on that soft and temporary shore


so staggeringly long ago, time
had not yet cut its straight line
through the tangle of the planet,
nor taken up the measured sweep
that stacks the days and seasons
into an ordered past.

But I can feel her stirring
in the core of me, trying to rise up
from the deep hollow where she fell—
wanting to prowl on long callused toes
to see what made that shadow move,
to face the creature in the dark thicket

needing to know if this late-spreading dawn
will bring handfuls of berries, black
as blood, or the sting of snow,
or the steady slap of sand and weed
that wraps itself like fur
around the body.

A Gray Sky..A Bitter Sting.

When you press the button on your camera, the shutter is opened for a fraction of a second,
and ghostly ships are seen floating in the sky.
And sometimes images of towns, trees appear and taunt the thirsty..

The Way Things Work By Jorie Graham

The Way Things Work by Jorie Graham

is by admitting
or opening away.
This is the simplest form
of current: Blue
moving through blue;
blue through purple;
the objects of desire
opening upon themselves
without us; the objects of faith.
The way things work
is by solution,
resistance lessened or
increased and taken
advantage of.
The way things work
is that we finally believe
they are there,
common and able
o illustrate themselves.
Wheel, kinetic flow,
rising and falling water,
ingots, levers and keys,
I believe in you,
cylinder lock, pully,
lifting tackle and
crane lift your small head--
I believe in you--
your head is the horizon to
my hand. I believe
forever in the hooks.
The way things work
is that eventually
something catches.

"Like the evening among the silent trees.."

"STRAY birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.
O TROUPE of little vagrants of the world, leave your footprints in my words.
THE world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.
IT is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom.


THE mighty desert is burning for the love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.
IF you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
THE sands in your way beg for your song and your movement, dancing water. Will you carry the burden of their lameness?

HER wistful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.
ONCE we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.

SORROW is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees.."

By: Rabindranath Tagore