Ellen Porter
1/24/08
Anatomy of a Poem

After reading the great poets—
Ryoken, Oliver, the Haiku Masters—
I search for something to
roll around in my mouth
like two-toned marbles.

The poets pull lines out of
nothing—sandpipers
running with the tide
or a longed-for lover
alive in the memory of damp thighs,
yet gone.

How do I find a thing
so mundane that I can
fashion it with words
and in early morning darkness
make it gleam?


Ellen Porter
2/5/08
February Rain

While it should shower snow,
the black skies of three a.m.
loose drops of winter rain
and are split by arrowy roots of lightning.

The birds huddle on power lines
breathing breath by breath of the cold months.

Nowhere can I see green in this midnight light
nor could I see it again in daytime.
It is a season of darkness
split open, moment to moment
by untamed electric spark
and overwhelmed by
drums of incipient thunder.


Ellen Porter
2/1/08
Ice Deity

February freeze.
A few days ago, in another month,
warmth enough to push
sprouts of crocus through the dirt.

And today it freezes.
I cannot see the one
who brings the cold,
the zero weather,

but I know she is there
carrying ice in her woolen bag
dropping icicles like spears
planting cubes in the weary earth.

With rain and ice:
winter’s cocktail,
she will relish her drink
like nourishment.

But I cannot see her;
I will not bid her welcome.


Ellen Porter
1/19/08
My Questioning Heart

They arrived late last night
reaching the far span of bridge
from Oregon to Erie.
An air-bridge
holding them aloft
incredibly
not loosing them from cloud and vapor.

I was home alone
waiting in sleep as they landed
with stomach lurching
heart trembling strength
and then the baggage and the rented car.

I waited, sleeping, as they drove
through the city
familiar from former times
and then they parked and
lifted their bags by ancient
elevator—
a metallic inner gate,
a green or kumquat door.

And they came to my hospice bed
and called my name.
I half rose in welcome
and accepted them both,
niece and great niece,
into the loving circle of my questioning heart.


Ellen Porter
1/30/08
She Listens

She listens softly
gathering my pain
like sandy starfish in a bucket.

I poke at an arm
that falls off
brittle and torn.

It will grow back.
It was injured before;
but new pain leaves room
for new growth.

I tell her of my impending death.
She sits stunned by my clarity.
A therapist, stunned.

She sits very still
a long-necked heron
waiting for the silver fish.

And when it comes
she ignores the flash
and drops her eyes.

There is no therapy for moments like this.


Ellen Porter
2/18/08
The Dry Season

The rose bush
with shoots of thorns
no blossoms

The morning bird
eyes closed with sleep
lying in its nest of grasses
no song

The river
water flowing reluctantly
threading its way around stones
no fish

The poet
stomach empty
head devoid of lovely thoughts
no words.

I wait
looking for the Beloved face
when roses blossom
fish roast over an open fire
and accompanied by birdsong
the words flow nectar sweet.


Ellen Porter
2/16/08
Uprooted

My father, the farmer,
moved from Nebraska
and lost his roots.

He was brave and simple
and sank new roots
in California:
strawberries and oranges, apricots
the army and
a wedded wife.

He thrived and from
his tendrils, he raised a family,
sprouted two daughters
who were nourished and loved and grew.

He seemed happy here
out West.
But I wonder, still,
ninety-one years later,
if he didn’t dream of
wheat fields in Nebraska.

Ellen Porter
2/9/08
An Abandoned Hut

Years ago you were
bright and healthy and mean.
Then your aorta tore open
and you combed death
back into its rightful field.

Today you offer me a book
on energy, auras and healing.
I can see it excites your spirit,
though I wonder why you have not been healed.

Your voice stammers and your gait,
but you are still bright
and not so mean.

I read and feel my energy rise
like the full moon beside


Ellen Porter
3/12/08
Each Grain of Rice

Each grain of rice
in my bowl
soaked in butter and salt.
How I love my breakfast!

But, oh—how is it
for the farmer—
scattered, watered, collected
all a season’s worth?
How it is loved by him!
His season’s worth
how it is loved
and loved.


Ellen Porter
2/27/08
I Waken

I waken,
fingers cold at eleven thousand feet,
inhaling air that still holds
yesterday’s warm scents
of shooting star, columbine, and
exfoliating alpine granite.

One more stretch
and I emerge, shivering
toward mountain coffee
and hotcakes
sprinkled lavishly
with blueberries.

They told me to
beware of bears
but dawn brings no fear
and hand over hand
I release the ropes
and lower breakfast to the ground.

Before lighting the camp stove
I bow in the four directions.
The Beloved quivers with joy.


Ellen Porter
4/08/08
My Psalm Book Lies Open

I do not do Rumi proud.
Memory comes and goes
like scratchy ink from a
ball point pen.
I scratch the paper
like two toads—
their frog legs in sand
pushing, pulsing
through last night’s rain;
What can I tell you now
about memories and golden oranges
about juice running through my fingers
and down my chin.
Nothing is happier than this.

My psalm book lies open to
Wednesday morning, Wednesday.
Wednesday week three. And when I waken,
I do not know if it is morning or night.
I wait for clues, then have to ask.
It is Tuesday morning.
I will have a shower after prayer
and then out to breakfast with
Sheila, Susan, and Marlene.
Later we will be caught.
Caught against pancakes and syrup.
Against syrup and blood sugar.
One more thing I have to ask.


Ellen Porter
1/27/08
Seven For Supper

Seven were home
but no supper to serve;
we were forgetful rather than lazy.
We rang a bell and
gathered for prayer
Evening Praise filled with smiles,
with sighs of gladness, relief.

Someone hurried off for sandwiches
and we sat deep into the night
laughing, eating, enjoying
the company of a full house.

It takes so little to taste a bit of heaven:
deep prayer, good food
and abiding forgiveness.

We passed the night in splendor
only to wake again in the morning
looking for the marvels of so much more.


Ellen Porter
2/26/08
The Doing of Things

There are three ways
to get things done
now that I am sick.
I didn’t go outside all day yesterday,
but needed to make my bed,
fill my eating bowl and
fetch my water.

There are some things
that some days
I can do myself
and I feel useful and strong.
I must do what I can to
still feel alive.

There are some things
that some days
I need to ask help
in the doing.
I ask and it is given.
I feel grateful but lazy.
Can I forgive myself the asking?

There are some things
that some days
you do for me without words.
Both know I am unable.
I weep inside at my disability
and at the greatness of your love.


Ellen Porter
2/28/08
two days in a snowy hut

it could be said
it was wasted:
no meditation,

but reading novels
taking naps and
playing gin rummy.

the begging bowls are china
and the serving dish
filled with Gala apples naval oranges, and cantaloupe.

we set the table with napkins and forks
and then, with snow in our eyes, sweet juice in our mouths
we give thanks for being
mendicant monks.

Ellen Porter
2/7/08
Alpenglow

It has been many years
since I have seen Mt. Whitney.
It has become a highway for hikers:
The tallest peak.
I have no desire to climb it.
In my old age I would be content
to watch from low in the
Alabama Hills
as the mountain flushes
pink in alpenglow.
The Beloved shows herself
in myriad ways.
I do not have to scale the peaks
to be in Her presence.
Ah, but I am caught up
a continent away.
What can the Beloved
possibly have for me here in Pennsylvania?


Ellen Porter
1/22/08
Drumming Circle

In a circle of burnt orange armchairs
in the convent chapel
the women—
the sisters and friends—
wait ready for
the incipient rhythm to begin.

It is mine
the cancer ridden body,
that presents itself for succor.
And so it comes to me
to start the beat.

Before hands stir
I warn
I may not have strength to lead—
that another may need to
grab the rhythm and run.

And so we begin
twelve in all;
ten women, a girl child and a baby miss.
(The young ones beat their fists into power.)
I beat in a rhythm of four
and the dark drums follow,
smoothly, evenly
until I change to patterns of three.
They stumble a bit and then
waterfall their hearts
into new falling play.

I do not need to
give away the beat.
I grow stronger
until the time to put away
drums and hearts and rhythms.
Then I bow low to the sacred
and stumble to my cell.


Ellen Porter
1/18/08
Hunger

Hunger
I cannot describe it—
even as poet—
because I have always had
a loaf of bread and a cup of milk,
accepting what seemed inevitably mine.

But ask the child
shivering in the soup kitchen line,
What is hunger?
He pretends, at first, that I am
not talking to him.
Why would an adult want to know?
Then he whirls around to face me.

“I don’t hafta be here,” he defends.
“It was my sister’s turn for dinner
so I thought I’d catch a bite here.”

Can you tell me what it is like,
being hungry?
“That’s a stupid question.
Hungry is what you feel
when you feed the last soup to the baby.
He settles into your arms
and pulls on the bottle, and waves his
fists in the air. And you see him smile.
Hunger is having a little soup
and giving it away.”


Ellen Porter
2/10/08
Morning Distress

I.

I waken with disappointment
falling through the cracks
in my heart
like leaves of the maple
beside the wandering path.

I cannot remember the dream
that spawned this distress
but it stirs my stomach
like the third cup of coffee.

I would like to lay it down
this lump of discomfort
and walk softly
along the rain-filled pot holes
of winter.


II.

Morning’s discontent
dream-born and so tedious
tamps the poet’s soul


Ellen Porter
3/19/08
Scribbled Out, Scribbled In

When I was young
I took my mother’s hand
in the warmth of winter.
I felt guilt
in the closeness of that private grasp.

Still later, the spring buds welcomed
my wayward spirit.
Watercress clings to icy banks;
drips brittle lettuce:
stalactite against
weary stalagmite.
Dripping and dripping.


Ellen Porter
1/17/08
The Democratic Process in the USA

I arrive at the polling place;
an elementary inner city school
where children and parents know squat
about the candidates.

Eight o’clock and I am tenth to vote;
the school breeds a generation of apathy.
Parents drop off their children
looking forward to having a quiet day,
but they do not stop at the polls.

Inside the volunteers fumble for my name.
(If I weren’t there to help, would I
vote another’s choices?)

The computerized voting machine and
even I, computer educated,
need to question the process.
It is not easy when
the government makes things safe.

I pull the lever to record my vote.
It grinds my crunching choices
into light and they disappear.

No paper trail.
I so regret the possibilities with
no paper trail.
Perhaps the Swiss should be called in to monitor
our one-time democratic process.


Ellen Porter
2/21/08
Truth and Friendship

Yesterday I told you the truth,
the hard words that
stung you to the bone.

And all day long
my stomach ached
while you smiled and
drew me near.

It is essential to
expose the truth
or our friendship
will be hollow as a tree,
lightning struck.

At times you grow
angry with me and
we survive it, whole.
At times I grow angry with you
and we abide,
strengthened.

You flail at me
with your tongue.
I grab at your soul
with my pen.
They are the same.

But, oh, my dearest friend
neither of us enjoy the
pain we strike in
each other’s heart.
We cry for deep-set forgiveness,
a geode broken open
to reveal its ornate, hidden crystal.

Ellen Porter
2/24/08
Acceptance

I write a poem
three poems
and a wise one
enters my cell.

We meet each other
walking around the room
saying not a single word
but both of us
grinning and grinning!


Ellen Porter
2/24/08
Dr. Laukaitis

Margaret, my doctor,
enters the examining room
clearly late, as expected.

Blond hair, long as her shoulders
she comes up to my chin
and she smiles and speaks
as though she loves me
most of all her patients.

She tells me I will
probably die within six months
and reads the words of my poems
that she thinks will outlive me.

She reviews my body
inch by inch and
makes small adjustments
to ointments and pills.

I remind her
if things go as prophesized
I will see her only
three more times.

She takes both my hands in hers
and prays to her
loving, evangelical god.


Ellen Porter
1/30/08
Hospital Bed

My new bed
of steel frame—
I can adjust
the height of my head.
It lets me breathe.

My old bed
of comforting wood
and even mattress
lies taken apart
stored in a cupboard.

How can I stay angry
with this new bed
when I sleep nine hours
able to breathe?

We will try to be friends,.


Ellen Porter
1/31/08
Mendicant

I.

Living in the monastery
penning verse day after day
I am fed three meals
and don’t need my begging bowl.
Ryoken, come feast with me.


II.

You not only speak
as prophet and sage
but side by side
with Ryoken
you don the robes of the monk
and live your verse.
What grace it is to
brush by your shoulders
and grin.


Ellen Porter
3/13/0i8
Roast Pork and Spring Potatoes

Two women
welcomed to our table;
roast pork and spring potatoes.
Our hearts need nothing more.

Laughter fills the air
with word games:
óregáno and oregano,
alumínium and alúminum.

Two nations meet
across ocean depths:
no animosity or despair.

It is the women
bringing peace to the world,
our hearts too filled with joy
to sing war songs.


Ellen Porter
2/4/08
The Definition of Community

I.

They cared for her
enough to listen:
her elaborate tale of a
week’s visit to
an enchanted city.

She needed to tell it
to make it real;
and she called us back
if our minds or feet
wandered.

The magic of the telling
was not in the story
but in our love,
honor and holy inclusion
of the tale-bearer.
This is the definition
of community.


II.

She told her tale
and captured, we listened.
What holier love
is there to be found?


Ellen Porter
10/22/07
Traveling Home

Away from home
greeted by a palette of strangers
I stare out
timid, piercing
and see my illness, reflected,
flickering across those inquisitive faces.

I pack my boxes, nearing visit’s end,
clothes and medicine and myrrh
tucked away against my burial.

We will travel home today
and as the miles unwind
I will change, a chameleon
nearing water.
Lake Erie once again
holding safely in its wind waves
my translucent, malleable soul.

Ellen Porter
3/09/03
A Winter Chrysanthemum

You are a hermit,
ill at ease,
trying to live your wisdom.
Every day you are humble,
claiming your lowliness
your insignificance.

How I wish you could see
for yourself, your brilliance,
never changing a bit of your nature,
coming to full blossom:
a winter chrysanthemum.


Ellen Porter
2/17/08
does the poet—

the poem--
have an obligation to speak
literal truth?

or can it weave its
words poetic
to grasp the deeper meaning
out of simple, imagined
birdsong?

when you ask
“did this really happen?”
or “who is this dappling
your poem?”
i must answer
with staunch certainty
from the liquid world of dreams,
“it is true! it is all true!”


Ellen Porter
2/14/08
Her Mother Heard Her Singing

At five years old
Grace sat quietly in church
no wiggles or whines.

She liked the music best
and would sing along
to words and tunes
she didn’t know.

Later, at home,
her mother heard her singing:
the melody certain,
the words clear.

“What are you singing, Grace?”
her mother wondered.

“That song in church
when they handed
people crackers and juice.
“Blessed at this table:
Yum, yum, yum.”

I don’t remember the words we sang,
but this version seems
infinitely better.


Ellen Porter
2/26/08
Pushing Into March

This morning
before daybreak
the thermometer hovers
around eighteen degrees out doors.
White dust decorates the grass
the blackened trees.
And piles of snow
play hide and seek in
the corners of the playground.

February closing in on March
the first stalwart shoots
poke out and then nestle
in a pocket of protecting snow
dreaming of being crocus
daffodil and hyacinth.

I do not go out
but dream, too,
of blossoming,
healthy and full-grown
in warmer, softer days.


Ellen Porter
1/18/08
The Beloved Has a Wild Streak

The Beloved
has a wild streak.
She likes to kick up her heels
and dance circles
around the dervishes.

Sometimes she gets
so carried away
that dust scatters over
the cities, mountains and desert.

The cities are the worst.
Dust blots out sidewalks
and towers
until only merchandise is left.
Merchandise and credit cards.

Sometimes it blusters
around the mountains
leaving cliffs unnoticed
until the hearty hiker falls.

It shrouds the desert so that
cactus spines are invisible
and puncture those who are
unfortunate to be in that aridity.

She laughs, delighted with her antics.
You see, she is not only the god of love
but also the god of mischief and despair.
Our sinfulness is the result of
her dusty dancing
for with that whirling dust we cannot see.

It doesn’t matter.
Whether we are lovers or
mischief makers
or merely victims
we sit straddling her lap
her arms holding us tight.
We are her antics and her eternal delight.


Ellen Porter
2/10/08
Today the Pen Lies Awkward

Today the pen lies awkward in my hand.
If only I could hold conversation
with Robert Frost or Mary Oliver
perhaps the words would
run together, overflowing
with line after line of
orchestrated meaning.

They are here in poems
pointing the way
to be sure.
And that is good
but somehow less
than meeting one another
eye to eye and flesh to flesh.

Ellen Porter
1/26/08
A Sprig of Sage

In the middle of night
I awaken with half spent sleep;
Cracks in my elbow grind against my sheet,
the nasal prongs from oxygen plug my nose.
Neither lets me sleep.

So I rise and brew coffee,
take many tablets
and breathe in medicated air.

And finally I settle down to read
Ryoken—I fuss about so much,
as he smiles in the moonlight.

I would be willing to trade his cell for mine.
He has learned patience while I
flutter fingers into productivity.
He needs only his begging bowl and a sprig of sage.


Ellen Porter
2/2/08
Death Is Not Abnormal

Death is not abnormal;
everyone does it.
We just don’t think
about it much
until we are gentled
into its process.

The Beloved has lent
us too much beauty
to be fixed on
disintegration.

We fly around
garden and sea
flapping our lively wings
until we believe
there is no stopping us.

And then it comes.
One moon-filled night
just a tiny fissure
a tiny awareness
of, oh so normal,
death.


Ellen Porter
2/19/08
Great Blue Heron

The grassy expanse
holds its attention
as it glides above:
crested grey head
a six foot wingspan
legs straight out behind,
the rudder of a boat,
giving direction through
nickel blue lake air.

It circles once: the meadow
rich in rabbits, toad and squirrel—
provides ambiance, but no meal.
And then the bird back-paddles
with its spacious wings
and lands, one-footed
in the cold Erie water.

Straight as a redwood
silent as stone
it waits for a meal of fish
to pass its way.
All day long it may linger,
the meadow flourishing
with unmolested life.


Ellen Porter
1/23/08
Macabre

Rising two hours after
midnight sucks life out of me
two hours before the poem
is blown to fullness or not
blown at all
rising, I take pen and ink
to see if night darkness
expands life beyond all light
or if it cavorts, unbidden with death.

There is one, a successful poet,
who says they are the same movement:
life expanded, death cavorting
and so, sitting in the poet’s chair
I am unclear if my toes and elbows
throb with nascent life or
play within death’s inner hollows.


Ellen Porter
10/22/07
Tavern Songs

I don’t know if it was
spirits that sang or if
it was the pinnacles themselves
rising high above the meadow floor.

But the Beloved was there, I know,
blending Her harmonies with the others
singing
first tavern songs
and then the Gloria.

It was a thousand nights ago
maybe two thousand
and my heart has never
lost the pain of that delectable union.


Ellen Porter
2/14/08
There is No Promise

There is no promise
that I will join
the Beloved in six months,
though hospice hopes I will.

The doctors make bets
like gamblers at a
blackjack table.

But I don’t feel like dying.
I follow footsteps closely
here on earth,
the prints of the Beloved
and even in winter
it is enough.
I smell her orange blossom perfume.

Ellen Porter
1/25/08
A Separate Hour

You startle when I hand you
a poem to read.

You didn’t know I owned
paper and pencil and a poetic mind.

Ten years in the monastery
doing chores and studying theology.

Never a separate hour
to take up pen and ink.

Somehow that trade-off—
cleaning floors for poetry

lays heavy over what could have been
productive days.

But I read, instead, until my memory
split, and rolled across the page, unwritten, unread.

I made it through, somehow
fragile and empty of life but sound of mind.

Now I am visited by hospice
slowly dying of cancer,

And the elders can find no other tasks for me.
They leave four o’clock a.m. alone,

my dawning pen jostles paper in perfusion!
Like a three-hole punch ridding itself of circles.


Ellen Porter
2/6/08
Death and Exuberance

Today’s grass cut,
the wandering smell of
a spring grave
or a welcoming of baseball.

It doesn’t matter which
now that winter melts
away its frosted blanket
and leaves the lawn to
better, livelier sport.

Still, the sacred path between
death and exuberance
cannot be measured
or ignored.


Ellen Porter
1/28/08
Graduation

His thesis typed, bound
and presented to the master.
His exams completed, impeccable.
Class work finished
each exclamation point fixed.

He enters the master’s study
approaches the desk.
The master sits garbed in
gown and hood, waiting.

The master says to the man,
“You have finished well. You
are free to go, honored.”

The young man looks anguished
and simply cries out the words,
“But what is it all for?”

The master rises, smiles and spreads his wings;
books on all four walls embraced
by that calling.
He answers,
“Read all of these and then come back.”


Ellen Porter
2/4/08
Leave-Taking

She, on leaving for eleven days,
kissed me solid on the lips and said,
“No funny business while I’m gone.”
Funny business? I replied.
Her eyes darkened to black centered
lunar disks.
“Yes,“ she said,
“don’t get worse and die.”
I promised I would wait for her until spring
until the roses and daffodils
vied toward paradise.


Ellen Porter
1/28/08
Play

A five-year old and
a sixty-five year old
playing together.
The elder holds a toy moose
and tells the child
its name is Mo.

All day long the snow falls
and the child plays indoors.
All day long there is no heat;
the registers are broken.
The child does not wail or moan
but keeps on playing.

The elder does what elders do.

At suppertime the child brings Mo
to the table and hands it to the elder.
She says, “I know something you need to know.”
The elder nods.
“Mo likes to be stroked on the top of the head
like this
and likes to be scratched under its chin
like this.”
The elder nods, takes Mo and
bows to the child.
“We are now connected forever.”


Ellen Porter
2/03/08
Spring: Three Poems

1

Spring is chasing
winter from the playground.
Even snow along the pathway wilts.

2

I yearn for my most dear companion
because she loved me first.
Even the stone beckons my heart toward passion.

3

The pain of springtide
settles in my back.
But I say, “permit the pain.”
I would rather lie down in agony
watching lilacs bloom
than see another unseasonable snowfall


Ellen Porter
2/28/08
There Is No Greater Gift

The day of hardest snowfall
I sit in warmth
with a friend
in a newly furbished hut.

Outside the trees:
boughs decked out
with snow like opals.

Inside, a comfortable chair;
for lunch, soup and smoked salmon,
and all the better,
it is shared with a friend:

A friend who laughs
at the absurd
and cries out at the beautiful.
There is no greater gift.

Ellen Porter
3/01/08
A Pile of Vegetables

Begging all morning
and still my bowl is empty.
Hafiz grabs me by the neck
and shouts loudly in my ear.
You are a lazy oaf!
Look at the pile of vegetables
at your feet.
Too blind to pull out your knife
to scrape the carrots and potatoes
the lovely onions.
Here, I will help your
lackadaisical hands,
and then we can dance and holler
while simmering
split pea soup.


Ellen Porter
2/13/08
Dabbling With Rumi

This morning I rise late
and have little leisure for poetry.
I dabble with Rumi
then try the woven words
of my own tongue.

I wait for the Guest
to visit
the Guest who makes
all shine like gold
like prisms in drops
of unexpected rain.

The Beloved laughs at
my tense betrayal of time;
She is everywhere
at each moment
and I have lost nothing.


Ellen Porter
2/9/08
Glinodo

There is a chapel
hidden in the sycamore woods
overgrown with spiders and weeds.

No one goes there but me
and I only to smell
the rough tang of old wood and nails.

At one time
it must have been god
the builders sought.

Now, that dream abandoned,
I am satisfied with
winter silence and
piles of fallen leaves.


Ellen Porter
2/22/08
Learning to Walk

Like human beings
following each other
a few steps apart

the wild turkeys
cross the road
in single file.

They do not speak
one to the other
or gobble.

No gossip, no tales
exchanged
just learning to walk

row on row.


Ellen Porter
2/15/08
Passion For Her Presence

I come with a list
to the doctor.
We talk about
item by item
and find treatment
for each.

If it were only
so easy to
find the Beloved Guest.
If She is playing
hide and seek
one remedy and I find Her;
or if she is watching
as I sulk in loneliness,
one caress.

But it is not so.
She remains hidden
until it pleases Her
to be found,
and when I sulk
she waits for me
to mature to my
god-given age.

The Beloved Guest
abides in Her own time
with her own rules.
And still
my heart stirs with
passion for her presence.


Ellen Porter
2/21/08
Some Winter Days

There are winter days
I never go outside:
no caps or mittens
taken from their pegs.
I curl up like a
turtle warding off
irritation,
and from some deep place
under my blanket,
I catch glimpses of
tortoise shell and snow.


Ellen Porter
1/21/08
The Visit

How many months now
have I risen before dawn
to brighten my eyes with
the words of the great poets?

I clamber up into the poet’s chair
and wait for words, fresh as the smell of
a newborn’s head
to settle onto blank paper
through my old, green Parker pen.

But yesterday,
the house filled with guests
dearly loved people, and
the only words upon my page were stale as a
two day old bagel needing
cream cheese for swallowing moisture.

The guests—my family—come to
balance time. I am dying but
not quite yet.
My niece says she doesn’t want to tucker me out,
but also wishes not to ignore me.

We all must find a balance:
my niece, my words, the early
morning tilt of my pen.

Ellen Porter
2/29/08
A Melting Place

They say icicles hang
from the eaves of a house
with little insulation.
The ice seems permanent
like organ pipes
until the sun melts
away their final chords.

I wonder what comes
of a person
standing out in the frozen air
until the day’s heat
works its way through
muscle and blood to
an unexpected melting place.


Ellen Porter
2/03/08
Crossing the Lintel

Seven—
lucky number—
women sit around a table
discussing a book
already read by each.

As we talk
our facades fall away
and we see each other
rather than the story,
each to each.

Every one of us becomes
the lover, the loved and
the curious contender
for the most unique.

At hour’s end
we close our books
tuck them under protective arms
and welcome the facades again
as we cross the lintel
becoming our accustomed selves
burning the new and ferocious identities
for yet another week to come.


Ellen Porter
2/3/08
Gifts For the Longest Journey

My cell
is cluttered again with
knick knacks and gifts
from those who wish me well
and have no other way to show it.

If they only knew
a tidy cell would be their greatest gift,
perhaps they would come and take
what I want but do not need.

The real gift:
a sacred, bare-walled cell
with room to bounce off a
mendicant’s prayers.


Ellen Porter
2/21/08
lnterconnected Ones

My intercom
connects this room
to the next
just as this world
is connected to another.

Pine needles
connect this world
to the next
just as this world connects the earth
to interplanetary other.

I am disconnected
day to day from
one world step by step.

My mind holds
this world from another
as I wait for
final breath and this
from next to next.


Ellen Porter
1/24/08
orange

in the morning
i eat an orange left out all night
against the cold.
refrigerated in the evening
they hurt my teeth
but in the morning
i can peel away down to the pith
without aching fingers or gums.
such a blessing
so early in the morning!


Ellen Porter
2/25/08
Some Tidbit Worth Saving


I

I remark
repressed with fear
that there are
no poems left.

My therapist shouts
It is a trick!
There will always be creation—
poetic words
stuck in your craw perhaps—
but there will always be
some tidbit worth saving.

As she is shouting
she calls to Hafiz.
Close by, he scuttles up
sits excited by her side;
with raven eyes
they watch me.

My therapist and Hafiz
rock back on their heels
and laugh.
Tears of hilarity running
down their cheeks.
The therapist gasps:
Write about this!
Your pen is scribbling
your ink spreading
words into poetry
They shout together
You are being tricked!
In the moment
a poem is borning


II

I whine in despair.
My ink is dry
no poems left.
Hafiz shouts
You have been tricked!
The well of words
is never dry
only the ink of your pen.

So get out of your bed
you lazy oaf
and dance with me.
We will shake the poems
out of the tree of
your persnickety soul.


Ellen Porter
2/27/98
The Splitting Place

The frog rests
its body on land
its strong front legs
anchored in the river.
And split like a
kaleidoscope
its eyes—
half in air and
half in water.
It sees both worlds at once.

I am that frog
suspended between
dry earth and
the watery depths,
between the obligations
of this dry oasis and
the liquid world of dreams.
Here, at the splitting place
the Beloved waits.