Ellen Porter
12/13/07
A Song to Ann, Once Again

I remember years ago
your black ebony eyes
your dread-locked hair.

What can a white woman say
that will not offend?

I whispered aloud to you
"Toni Morrison"
and waited for your acknowledgment of
the Nobel Prize for literature.
You did not know, and I told you.

Rippling down your flat abdomen
and your straight back was
a pride you could not share with
this white woman.

I told you that you were the only one I knew
who would care.
I was wrong of course.
But care you did.

I wished my skin was dark
and that we could rejoice that night
black to black,
no history of oppression,
joy rising in us
like bird of paradise.


Ellen Porter
12/06/07
Day Care

Still autumn
the playground steeped in snow.
Not one child with wet feet.
They push their foreheads
against window glass,
breathe blind shadows,
then turn and run across
the room of treasures
trading cold white for a book with pictures
of a playground steeped in snow.


Ellen Porter
11/22/07
Heart Song

In mystery it is written on my heart:
the clack-clack of autumn-black branches,
the music of ocean stones rolled in a watery crevice,
the pitiful voice of a hungry city cat.
In mystery these are written on my heart.

In joy it is written on my heart:
the silent glide of moonlight through the pines,
the first born crocus, contracting upward through still icy soil,
the tender smile, half hidden, by a cantankerous old man.
In these, joy is written on my heart.

In mystery these are written on my heart.
In joy these are written on my heart.
In mystery and joy my heart is full.


Ellen Porter
9/14/07
Living in the Wilds

Some poets live in the wilds
their eyes and ears and fingertips
moving over the trees like Braille.
They see deer whose wide open eyes
look back at the poet who
has befriended all the world,
and when the moon slides
silent across the skies
a doe puts its gentle muzzle in the poet’s
still and bewildered hand.
But never taming the wild,
these poets meander through beauty and darkness
crafting verse, word by feral word.

I, too, live in the wilds and try to write,
my eyes and ears and sensate heart
edging across the running sidewalks
as I slip past the crack houses
where addicts seek their own wilderness
their own wavering moons.

I see the prostitutes
their costumed bodies, like manikins,
displaying their wares in the shining night’s glow.

In my wilderness, wildflowers and tufts of grass,
sparse and brave,
push through cement slits, the sidewalks
offering their own paltry beauty.
I, too, find poems
tucked inside the city’s wilderness.
I wonder, could we sanitize the city wilds?
Does the inner-city poet hold
a different responsibility?
What verse is there
that can capture and tame this darkness?
Would any one of us be redeemed
by some enigmatic, tumbled word?


Ellen Porter
12/03/07
Rain

Is it raining?
Yes, very hard.
Did you look out the window?
Yes, it’s wet and dark.

I may be playing up sympathy
or maybe not. But in my bodily disease
I am still capable of looking out my own window.

I ease to the window ledge
find dust, left over from yesterday’s cleaning,
and a spider web—nobody home.
The latch is strained against moist wood
and I cannot loosen it to raise the window.

I breathe heavily and return to my chair.
Is it raining?
Yes, very hard.
I was at the window
but didn’t see any rain.

Your lesson for today:
Do not expect to see outdoors
when your vision focuses on
the window’s edge.


Ellen Porter
10/2/07
The China Garden

The hope rises,
a heron taking flight,
as we tease our appetites
our mouths imagining
the food our bodies yearn to taste

and then we give away
our power of choice
and with reverence
ask the chef to
give us what we need.

He is diffident in social skills
and bends his head
to view his fingers.
He has loved one of us
(now bone and ashes in an urn)
as his absent father,
long dead,
may have been loved by him.

The purity of his amazing soul singing
out to our souls,
he chooses perfectly
what will nourish us tonight.


Ellen Porter
10/4/07
Through the Rising Wind

My lung is getting better
the doctors tell me, marveling.
But as I shuffle from the car
my breath cannot find purchase

and I hunger and tussle
relying, but not faithfully,
on nose and mouth
this God-given airway.

I will never run again
but in mind’s taut attention
I feel dry wheat
whispering against young legs.

I remember running, sliding the dirt paths
through post-card golden poppies and sweet lupine
the call of red-winged blackbirds singing
harmony to the ocean’s tunes.

Remembering defibrillates the senses
vision, sound and touch
but nothing more precious than the memory of air
as I tumble through the rising wind.