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.