Ellen Porter
11/12/07
Constancy

Tomorrow I will run to Your heart
for courage and a glimmer of Your will.
Today
I will float chrysanthemums in a bowl
and will gaze silently on your beauty.
Today, tomorrow
You are my Beloved.
Do not stay far off in the desert.


Ellen Porter
12/16/07
Gratitude

Each separate spirit
weaves its own gift,
sets it free into the world
to settle fine as dandelion lace
on trees and birds, raccoons and human hearts.

Each separate gift
spins love into creation
and love upon love
the world gives back its gratitude.


Ellen Porter
10/15/07
kin

your mother gave you promises
life hard and cold as brick
but still yours to take along
promises making you
the root and seed of
your imagination.

my mother offered old poems
sweet and sticky,
honey dappled on the
bitter side of leaves.
she gave me nothing
as sibyl,
so i mark my own path
scattering anger
like bread crumbs.


Ellen Porter
11/02/07
Owl Wings

Darkest of mornings
chill whisper of autumn
I waken with the
aching call of pain.

I long for owl wings
for the antics of ouzel
played out in falling water.
I yearn for unprotected light,
my skin burning below shorts
above a tattered tee
lending an aura of strength
to my mountain-eager body.

I trace the power of these things
allowing the scent of pine,
the wizening of storm-destroyed boles,
the eternal passage of trout,
allowing them to hand me over
from pain, to beauty, to
a huge hungering for freedom.


Ellen Porter
11/19/07
Thanksgiving

I am grateful
and spin a comforter of memories:
my life, a quiet canoe
floating in steadfast water.

Morning coffee softened with milk,
the first blue-blackened sky of autumn dawn
bursting into sunrise.

Five friends, shaping a community of love,
willing to loose the strings of selfishness
to feed the family or to wash the plate.

The garden, sunken, secret, below a hedge of pines,
the ancient maple, home to squirrels, birds, a raccoon
the sweetly staining mulberries pressed
in handfuls to purple lips.

I am grateful
for myriad pleasures,
every moment memorizing its gift.


Ellen Porter
11/21/07
The Wicked Trick

Three nights consecutive I waken.
My Beloved has allowed this malicious pain.
And yet I hold to Her,
my Mother,
the One who understands
the spirals of the dark.

If She blesses this wicked trick
of blistering, binding, malignant ache
then I bow to touch my forehead
to the floor and, not praising Her,
merely seeking to understand,
I whisper, “but You love me.
What is this awful gift
given by your benevolent hand?”


Ellen Porter
1/1/08
Traveling (for Joan Chittister)

You are leaving again,
your luggage always packed
ready for departure.
This time ten days in India
and a month in Cayman to write.

Globally known, you are.
People quiver at the chance to
look you in the eye, to touch your hand,
to hear you speak and
receive your blessing.

I know you sitting on the
rocking chair, chatting about death:
mine,
or lingering around the supper table,
outwitting the other guests with
thrice-told tales of near tragedy,
always ending in a
puff of laughter
blown across table settings at you,
like those trying to extinguish candles
on a birthday cake.

You are voted most influential woman today.
I sigh, regret another accolade,
and hand you a half-eaten bag of trail mix
for your long, barely nourishing
ocean flight to Asia.