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.