BEING HUMAN

I wonder if the sun debates dawn

some mornings

not wanting to rise

out of bed

from under the down-feather horizon

If the sky grows tired

of being everywhere at once

adapting to the mood swings of the weather

If the clouds drift off

trying to hold themselves together

make deals with gravity

to loiter a little longer

I wonder if rain is scared

of falling

if it has trouble letting go

If snow flakes get sick

of being perfect all the time

each one trying to be one-of-a-kind

I wonder if stars wish

upon themselves before the die

if they need to teach their young to shine

I wonder if shadows long

to once feel the sun

if they get lost in the shuffle

not knowing where they’re from

I wonder if sunrise and sunset

respect each other

even though they’ve never met

If volcanoes get stressed

If storms have regrets

If compost believes in life after death

I wonder if breath ever thinks

about suicide

I wonder if the wind just wants to sit

still sometimes

and watch the world pass by

If smoke was born knowing how to rise

If rainbows get shy back stage

not sure if their colors match right

I wonder if lightning sets an alarm clock

to know when to crack

If rivers ever stop

and think of turning back

If streams meet the wrong sea

and their whole lives run off-track

I wonder if the snow wants to be black

If the soil thinks she’s too dark

If butterflies want to cover up their marks

If rocks are self-conscious of their weight

If mountains are insecure of their strength

I wonder if waves get discouraged

crawling up the sand

only to be pulled back again

to where they began

I wonder if land feels stepped upon

If sand feels insignificant

If trees need to question their lovers

to know where they stand

If branches waver in the crossroads

unsure of which way to grow

If the leaves understand they’re replaceable

and still dance when the wind blows

I wonder where the moon goes

when she is hiding

I want to find her there

and watch the ocean

spin from a distance

Listen to her

stir in her sleep

effort give way to existence

-Naima Penniman, Climbing PoeTree

Adrienne Rich (1929-2012)

 

The Poetry Box honors the life of poet Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), who so eloquently dedicated her life and work to justice, love, and beauty. Upon learning of Rich’s death on March 28, Stegner Fellow David Biespiel called Rich, “The greatest American political poet since Walt Whitman.”

Rich was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997, but she declined to accept, saying, “I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration...[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.”

POWER

Living            in the earth-deposits     of our history

Today a backhoe divulged     out of a crumbling flank of earth

one bottle     amber     perfect     a hundred-year-old

cure for fever    or melancholy     a tonic

for living on this earth     in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:

she must have known she suffered     from radiation sickness

her body bombarded for years    by the element

she had purified

It seems she denied to the end

the source of the cataracts on her eyes

the cracked and suppurating skin     of her finger-ends

till she could no longer hold     a test-tube or a pencil

She died     a famous woman      denying

her wounds

denying

her wounds     came     from the same source as her power,

-Adrienne Rich, 1974

Waking Up

Look if you like, but you will have to leap. – Auden

In waiting there is hope—there is hope,

and dread: both somehow preferable

to certainty, if outwardly appropriate,

that may scathe. You are due your ineffable

deliberation, but I’ll concede

in the flash of my waking (in guilt

you hadn’t let me drive,

                                                you fetched a quilt,

                                                            closed

your eyes—

morning caught us hungover and clothed

though no accountability exists,

no reason to diminish, fear, or forgo

this                        ) I was happy. Yeah, I said so.

-by Jen Coleman

Jen Coleman is from Lynchburg, Virginia, where she dropped out of high school. She received a fellowship from the MFA program at Hollins University. “Waking Up” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.

Destiny Is a Red

Light filters through a crystal glass of red

Wine smoky and pure merlot

shines a color down to your very soul.

Heart red sounds a pure note

like a Flugel horn from a deep canyon

quiet, then suddenly full of chesty call.

In these passing storms of love,

one minute drenched, the next thundering dry,

A note echoes—in white porticoes

whose columns frame winsome gestures

of tender touch enfolding a young face

in time’s winnowing hand-held by some design.

In these corridors, where destiny walks naked

for all to see, hang ornate tapestries of time

scriven on by human multitudes unguided

save for some design because destiny dances

to a far off horn, blushing the color of dawn’s

light through a crystal glass of red.

-by Monte Rosen

Monte Rosen is the assistant facilities manager at the Center for the Arts. His poetry has been published in Birdcage Review, Dakota Home Journal, and other publications. He lives in Victor, Idaho.

Kicking Cairns

Nothing recommends this boulder

over the ten thousand others

in the field, except that

someone else, as lost as you,

thought to pile some stones here.

The chaos that confronts you

will evolve into a pattern

that bigger things broke into.

The freedom measured by each fall:

No one knows where you are.

It’s easy to make a statement out of

stones piled up within arm’s reach:

Here I have been; harder to know

which of the piles you come upon

you should kick down.

-by Rick Kempa

Rick Kempa lives in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he teaches writing and philosophy at Western Wyoming College. “Kicking Cairns” is featured in the Fall 2011 edition of Jackson Hole Review, www.jhreview.com.

The Choice

My body and soul are entwined,

chained unto yours

until the mental sword releases us.

What then…?

Will my heart be finally silenced,

or will it quicken and bloom again?

Is there a spark in these dying embers –

one to allow mending, to reweave the chains,

transforming them into golden threads of an

exquisite tapestry – a design woven to flow

from me to you and back again,

devoid of the strangling tentacles.

The essence of that choice

hangs in the air like smoke from burning incense,

            and yet

I cannot choose, oh God…

            not yet…

-by Claudia Gillette

Claudia Gillette lives in Jackson, Wyoming.

Whole list teabags dance on desks

                            Bones of the dresser sound elegant

ability, drag and sweep stairs. Far farm studio shakes all

different nuts to chew loud pieces.    

Paramedics save energy laughing all over the country. 

Worse than plans in glass “won’t recognize me the street

started fishing well, frozen pond. A long time remembered

emergency room.

Huggy people erase the legs of a chair and all this paper. 

Daughters came in fear of lunch pitied by Geppetto’s

forceful finish. Stealing across the square,

the legs of The Wooden Chair. Fell dogs fuss perfectly mountains of

confetti on the tongue. Bench journals lunch. James Page mittens documentary.

The poor don’t want, are happy only earthlight weaves to the spot,

moves on to the best received innocence written on tables,

enwreathed in ghosts.

I’ll disappear if one were to ask how erasing any awkwardness

candles in the street. Angles bend the line fish a busy room full of

shoes need repair.

Deep peg grocery bags change his sign to closed.

Guests arrive having picked the familiar face  I ‘ m  s u p p o s e d  t o 

think is insistent upon the faith of a trombone someone plays.

In the flash of a cackle, she warns, like me, the morning will capture,

needs to be praised.

-by Hanz Olson

Hanz Olson is currently a writer of poetry living in Casper, Wyoming after finishing school in Laramie. His poems have been selected for publication and appeared in Expression Literary and Arts Magazine, Open Window Literary Magazine, and Haggard and Halloo Publications.

Enormous gentle beasts

Speaking and recognizing more than humans know

Cooperating and following one another until death

A female at the stern, milk from her belly

Living almost as long as we, yet in harmony

Posing a threat only in defense, using their size only as deterrent

When they could control and cause infinitely more destruction

They are more keen to mourn loss, greet one another in celebration

And move on toward the next watering hole

Their wrinkled thick skin effective for sun and heat

Beauty more deeply expressed through intelligence and remembering

Survival depending on knowledge and community

Lessons cultivated over 25 million years evolution

Better equipped are they than us in so many ways and on all levels

Communities strong, traveling far distances together, for food, for water

And for love and family, mating a celebration of a continuum, not competition

Among these female giant gentle beasts of plain and jungle

-by Laura Garrard

Laura Garrard is an artist, editor, nationally certified massage therapist, certified lymphatic therapist and Reiki master teacher who lives in Jackson, Wyoming.

At Sunrise

Just at sunrise

a brilliant white arc flashes

around the corner of the

Dutch hip of my home,

beaks black against the morning green sky.

Looking up I catch only the thrust of eight wings,

long necks wobbling with the beat.

Swans.

They’d not announced their approach,

only soundlessly curled toward the east

to light on still water and feed.

- by David Porter

David Porter lives in Jackson and teaches at Journeys School where he is the Upper School Curriculum Coordinator. David teaches students to have an empowered voice in writing and in speech.

Stoke the Red

What do you do upon waking up one morning to find your northern world turned winter white,

Wondering, quietly over a pre-dawn mug of tea,

If in your pursuit of peace—all unruffled serenity and communion with silent mountains—

Has been at the expense of passion?

It’s been so long since you felt red in this gigantic, pristine white,

You almost forgot you missed it.

Stop what you’re doing; put down the mug;

Seek the Red immediately.

That fierce, hot, southern thing that won’t be frozen into stillness.

The wild woman who lives inside the wise one.

Take some moments to stoke the red—me? I seek music, the kind that is flounce-filled, foot-stomping, with flames that lick my fingers—

One song leads to the next; something is leading me on, click, click, click.

And I feel that inner gallop in my veins

That stirring, that heating, that happens from

Refusing to forget

That the part of us that sinks into peace

Is the same part of us that burns.

- by Amely Greeven

Jackson resident Amely Greeven started out as a fashion journalist, became a health and wellness author, and now writes about spirituality and the sublime. Find her at www.thereishopeinbeauty.com.