Ellen Porter
6/20/07
After the Scan

After the scan
I go to the clinic
with two essential friends.
I don’t have to wait.

The doctor comes in.
He is East Indian
young and beautiful.
Absorbs my trust.
He tries to hide
an embarrassed smile.

I have seen your scan, he tells me,
And I don’t understand.
What have you been doing
for the cancer?
Herbs? Potions?
What other magic?

I shake my head
puzzled, waiting.

He continues.
It looks better.
The tumor is smaller
the lung is clearer.
We are doing no treatment
and still you are getting better.
I don’t understand.

I ponder
wonder what in my life
would account for this miracle.

I get up early and write poems.
Listen to the morning bird sing.
I walk a mile a day with my closest friend.
I sing communal prayer
and bask at the center of a drumming circle.
I receive a weekly massage,
And I am loved by many.
I love them in return.
I read in my hammock in a secret garden.
Talk with my therapist.
Work two hours a day.
I eat what I want.

I am caught off balance with this quixotic news.
My soul quivers.

And then he adds
you also have a kidney stone.
I laugh and laugh.


Ellen Porter
4/9/07
Easter Trilogy

Walking in the snow
I wait for Easter morning
An ebony sky

No meat on Fridays
Lenten fast twice forgotten
Resurrection looms

Lenten days ended
My old lungs attempt a breath
I will not fast from air again


Ellen Porter
8/19/07
Homily For a Dead Brother

Earmarked for Pennsylvania
the jumbo jet poised for take-off
looks a hurricane in the eye.

You wait, dazed,
wandering the airport,
seeing your reflection in the eyes of strangers.

Looking like any other passenger,
you hold close to your side
the homily for a dead brother.

He died with you away,
harder for you than for him.
For him, serendipitous.

He needed to die alone
no strings tying him down to this world
the sheets left loose, encouraging escape.

You have missed it all,
yet you stand, ready,
praying for a hurricane diverted

to join the grieving ones,
stunned in silence
at his final departure.


Ellen Porter
5/30/07
Montana de Oro

We were three
walking at midday
across a field of wildflowers:
Indian paintbrush, lupine, California poppies.
The mountain at our backs turned red and gold.

Elizabeth was older than I—
old enough to be my mother—
and with us, between us
as we ran and jumped
wild with spring,
her daughter, Ruth, a child of twelve.

Across the field and down the cliff
the Pacific.
We watched for dolphin backs to break the surface,
for the spout of whales,
but what we saw was
a clear, clean shimmering blue
unbroken stillness except
for the lazy surf nibbling
at water’s edge.
A perfect day with
the song and vision of
red-winged blackbirds.

I jumped a gully
and landed on barbed wire.
A puncture on my leg.
Looking around with close intent,
I saw cow patties, flat and dry manure,
and my heart thought tetanus.
Liz took my foot in her lap
And squeezed the wound to
Make blood run.
The girl grew impatient
with my fear.

We left the day’s perfection
to seek inoculation.
Our love for each other
and the images of flower
and whales chased us to the car.
A small distraction—
life threatening but inconsequential—
in our sun drenched
salted air, magical
naiveté.


Ellen Porter
7/21/07
Same Wild Wings

The beginning of a week
free of chores and promises.

The beginning of a week
and I can sleep long
the sun not yet rising up
through the maple and oaks
up over the deep rippled blue
of Lake Erie.

I can sleep long
and in my eagerness
to give into lethargy
I come fully awake.

So I wander the unfamiliar cabin
in the dark
pulled like a lake tide
toward coffee and milk.
I wander in the dark
and listen to the morning bird
singing a familiar song.
Could this be a creature
common to these unfamiliar woods,
or did my morning bird,
same song, same wild wings,
follow me here from home?

It is the beginning of a week
and I can spend all day long
wondering.


Ellen Porter
8/12/07
Sunday

This morning
rising early is not enough.
It is not enough for generous time
to browse the poets,
to take pen and lined school paper
and set words to breath and pulse.

We must ready ourselves for church
shower away the first layer of loam
setting salvation rasping against
clean soil.
I could say I’d prefer the soil,
mixing tree dust and creek moss
returning me, a pure, natural
wonderfully tainted spirit
ready to fall to my knees
in an elaborate, complex,
moldering pile of ancient leaves.


Ellen Porter
6/9/07
Walking

Before debilitation
when I still drew oxygen
from city air,
we walked.
Two miles
threading the inner city
waving to the homeless.

We walked past the cathedral
its sacred perimeter
guarded with
a black iron fence.
Roses climbed that iron
and revealed the seasons:
bare, brown skeleton
iced with snow;
tiny leaves beginning slowly
bringing hints of orange then green;
and the sudden burst
from bud to blossom
a perfusion of roses
turning iron vivid pink;
finally a slow dying away
autumn with winter looming behind.
We walked the sidewalks
became familiar with pot holes
and cracks.
We watched green lights turn red
and dared the empty intersections.
Two miles, forty minutes,
we walked.

But now my breath is shattered
and oxygen comes from a tank.
And still, together,
we walk.

My tether limits our wanderings
and so we walk the hall—
twenty-six laps in each direction—
one mile.
Instead of the homeless
there are day care children
playing outside the window:
two sitting toe to toe
learning toddler talk.
And instead of roses
an asparagus fern
waves its tendrils around our heads.
We walk
no potholes
no intersections, no seasons.
She sets the pace,
touching the wall with magic
at each lap, calling out
“starting 17”
and in our heads we count
how many more to go.
Warding off death
one mile at a time
we walk.