Ellen Porter
12/15/07
Bar Fly

Hafiz is long gone
I must pick up his book again
to hear of his raucous brawls
and sarcastic taunts.

Oh Beloved
never known till now
and now so early lost.

Oh Beloved
greatest lover of us all
warm and welcoming
soft and mellowing belly.

I yearn for your mother laugh
my deep desire to crackle grey terrain
into windblown greening.

Hafiz
I will pull your book
once again from the shelf
if you promise to lead me tavern close
to our miraculous Friend.


Ellen Porter
12/18/07
Every Greening Tree

Every creature
every greening tree
every painted, gaudy bloom

and so, perhaps,
each chunk of gray and star-strewn granite
each and every one must die.

Days of nonchalance pass by
when I think of death lightly
disease given respite from suffering.

And there are spans of time
pulled tightly into darkness
when I dream of final breath
and darkening hole.

I tremble twice
in gratitude and grief
and some days they co-mingle
leaving me wondering
and weeping
beside the final door.


Ellen Porter
12/10/07
Imagination in Winter

Another December day.
Used snow a dirty scarf
of white and brown
some eight days fallen.

I, biding time till summer,
have not opened the weary screen
kicked in by children,
have not ventured out
into soul-searing cold.

No rivers or pines
no blackbirds, skunks or city cats
within these self imposed confines.
But the imagination is bright
and ink flows evenly from this pen:
a blissful opportunity to carry
a bundle of winter
through these feral halls.


Ellen Porter
10/1/07
Not Two, But One

The two can draw each other
like the sun holds earth in its gravity.
Or the two can lose their grip
and repel each other:
mercury at the repellent end of a magnet.
Either way fatigue eventually subdues
the vital energies.

So drop the focus of two.
Wander off after the Beloved.
Play Her intricate games, refresh your weariness,
gambol in Her delight

And bind yourself to Her
with cords stronger than
the push and pull of two.
Fling your energy away to God
in exchange for
Her lively, exuberant, endless
Passion.


Ellen Porter
12/05/07
Saying Good-Bye

My week unfolds with
the visit of a friend.

After ten years we see into
each others’ eyes
older, with the familiarity
of a dream lost at dawn
touching a vague image
but unable to resurrect the story whole.

I would rather be alone
but, in this final stage of illness
I let them in to say good-bye—
these friends of another era.

Soon I will no longer care
whether or not we say “so long.”
I will refuse each visitor
face by worried face.

I will curl up in my chair,
or lie practicing, on my bed
the still position of death.


Ellen Porter
11/21/07
The Sick Room

My sick room
cluttered by machines and
cotton balls, syringes, alcohol swabs,

there is the oxygen condenser
humidifier, nebulizer.
But across the room

in its comfortable corner
uncluttered, my blue quilt
waits the cool of evening

beckoning, its billows soft,
beckoning, the tenderness of colors,
ever pulling me, insistent, toward a final, uncluttered sleep.


Ellen Porter
10/30/07
Twice Blessed

Twice blessed
the cottonwoods golden
and the sun

shimmering across the
cloud stained morning.

It is so much finer
to look

to look and see the leaves,
the goldfinch, the spot of air
left by the wind.

So much finer than cottages
or chimneys or garden gates.

Though, speaking truly
these, too, add much pleasure
to my soul.