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.