Ellen Porter
11/10/07
Breath and the Moon

It all started when I couldn’t breathe.
When I couldn’t bear to stand still
and watch the moon

shining like a silver coin
outside my window
lofting from branch to branch

through the sycamore tree.
I couldn’t purchase air enough
to fill my lungs

and the doctors came
and the doctors spoke
and frowned their sympathetic

smiles while they told me
tonight would come before tomorrow’s
noon and I would likely see it.

Cancer, they say, cannot be outwitted.
But dangling from their fingers
like a cat’s catnip mouse

they offer one more hope, one more small hope,
and desperate, I grasp at it
in utter fear and trembling shame.


Ellen Porter
9/18/07
Inner City

Three little boys
brown and golden as forgotten waffles
swing together in my hammock
knees and legs entwined
heads knocking lightly together.
They are laughing as I approach
my pillow and water and book, my oxygen
balanced against aching elbows.

Is this your back yard? they ask.
No, I say, but it is my hammock.
Is this a church? They point to the house.
No, I say, it is a house where my friends live.
It looks like a church.
Where do you live?
Next door in the big building.
Could I have my hammock now?
They laugh and tumble out.
You can have the cat if you can
catch her, I shout after them.

The cat comes running to the bush fence
and escapes the six nimble hands.
The boys slow to a walk and
as they leave I hear one whisper

She even has shade here!


Ellen Porter
10/21/07
Nowhere near the union

of perfect love
I hide my face in shame
from the Beloved.

God loves me.
It is the only thing
left to say.

When I argue with
my friend
we sparkle in anger
but we are not ashamed.

Practicing love
practicing, practicing.

One day I will
pull the shameful
veil from my face
and let myself
be seen
by the Beloved.


Ellen Porter
11/0407
She Is There

I have not forgotten
that the Beloved
holds an angry charge.
Some sweet orange blossom days
She reclines in smiles and
sun-dappled silliness.
But I have known Her
to fling the burning sphere
from the heavens
and to roar,
initiating the unsuspecting
with a dangerous wrath.

We dirty the waters of ocean, lake and stream
and She is there.
We clang and tangle noise through city parks
and She is there.
We reap sterility from mine, rain forest, grainy field
and She is there.
And then we fall in tearful remorse for our sins and those of our kin
and She is there.

I tell you beware:
the Beloved is no play thing.
She offers a serendipitous joy
with Her beckoning arm
but with the other hand
She prepares a sound slap
for all the whirling world.


Ellen Porter
10/13/07
The Speaker

She is polishing herself
like granite.
Before the audience,
she is polishing herself.

Her hand brushes up against her eyes
pushes back her hair
fisting like an uphill stream.
She hides her face from us,
polishing.

Her words glisten.
She mirrors intensity, forgiveness from her sheen
and bitterness:
love of turtles and muskrat
otters, red-winged blackbirds
and fish
swimming the mother water,
polluted.

She shines clean
a river, surface slow,
and undertow of flame.
She burns redemption as she comes.
Thrusting my hand toward her eager soul
I do not wish it for myself—
I am nearly spent—
but plunder for the body politic,
the children
for the sprouting children.


Ellen Porter
12/08/07
Valerie

Today she celebrates
The beginning of her life on earth.

For the larger part, there has been joy:
sled rides on her first snow,
I held her close between my legs and
we squealed together, passing pines and
stones and squirrels.

At eleven, a backpack trip—
her first week
away from home, snuggled up against
this adoring aunt, naming the
“miss your mommy day,” and singing
“She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes”
in thunder, echoing off granite craters.

And much later, her wedding day.
the rings missing, she announced it loudly and firmly.
And when they were found
she sobbed against her lover’s chest.
I knew she had passed from exuberant child
To able adult.

And together the two set out on a journey:
the fifty states, surfing, rock climbing, camping again.

Then one day she called with new life in her belly
and we all cried with the joy of anticipation.

Now a mother—a wise and careful mother,
raising a child named Grace.
And with Mark, she continues to grow and to create,
to deal with crises, and to find joy
in this life on earth—the only life she owns.

Many more years to be celebrated,
and in my presence or in my absence
I love you Val, and I will forever.