Ellen Porter
2/3/08
“And Have the Bright Immensities Received our Risen Lord?”

When I was young,
twenty years to this earth,
I sang in your garden
about god, the Beloved, on
other stars in far-flung galaxies.
You called me naïve
and Christianity bogus.

You had enough hold on
my young heart
that I was embarrassed into silence,
by my sung glory,
my wanton trust.

But this morning
early as sunrise
thirty years later,
you are in your urn
on your husband’s bookshelf.
He is still not free of you,
and yet,
now with a troubadour’s
labored voice, rusty,
tight-throated, but
free as a migrating snow goose,
I sing of my Beloved
reaching out to far-flung shores.


Ellen Porter
1/19/08
Finding the Beloved

The Beloved does great things for us and holy is Her name.

First I come down with cancer
and She hands me relationships
to deal with. Hard, miserable,
quenching weavings of the heart.

And then I move across a
continent
and She hands me,
not orientation to a new home
but depression—
drugs and chatter and
the therapy of shock.

Now I gallop through hospice days
thinking I should be dealing with death
and the details involved with dying—
a funeral liturgy, coffin,
a burning fire, bright enough to
eat bones—
but She gives me, once again,
relationships.

Do you think She is found
only in friends and family
or also in depression and dying,
in grass and birds and trees
as well?

Do not leave me alone.
Wait with me and see.


Ellen Porter
3/28/08
Impending Death

It is there,
cornering amid the nasturtiums,
waiting for sun-high blooms;
it is there, waiting.

Waiting for a lifetime of events
of joy and despair
making memories
that only exaltation and death
can bring.
Lifetime dreams
born of early sled rides
and hikes up Sierra glens.

It is there
in the German brown bread
baked in coffee cans
molded to the rims and ripples
of time.
My niece for a life time,
and now, with my death,
my impending death,
a dark waiting.


Ellen Porter
2//20/08
my teeth hurt

molar to molar
bicuspids, incisors
my whole jaw
aches with each bite
of ice crème.

the dentist looks puzzled
and offers several guesses.
i know i am doomed.
he sends me off with a
prescription strength tooth paste,
and i try to keep
a positive attitude.

it won’t hurt for a
terribly long time.
in hospice
there are only so many
days to decide:
ice crème and pain
or deprivation.
most days i
court the pain.


Ellen Porter
2/13/08
Sister Mary Philip’s Wake

Sister Mary Philip,
dead at 91,
lies leaden in her box
as others look in
trying to remember
livelier days.

The old ones
wonder why she
should be taken
while they, five years older
and ready to
fling themselves
soul and body
heavenward,
should be left waiting
for god’s good
unfathomable timing.

And the Beloved laughs.
She alone juggles
the old souls and the young
in her timeless, agile hands.
She drops a few, now and then,
and gathers them up again
within her wide and billowing
cloak of many colors.


Ellen Porter
1/17/08
The Earth Weeps For Color

I bow low
my brow to the ground
and I weep.

The world has gone
white and barren.
Its gardens depleted,
it yearns for lavender, columbine red, and gold.

Cold they say is coming.
Just what do they think of today?
I wear two coats and
mittens over my gloves.

The earth weeps as I do.
The earth weeps for warm flame and for color
as I do.


Ellen Porter
2/23/08
Vegetable Soup

I did not sit
in meditation this afternoon
but took a knife to
a pile of vegetables.
Pared carrots sliced in coins
brussels sprouts peeling open
like little cabbages
celery the color
of sea anemone
trees of broccoli
white chunks of potato
and a wandering turnip.
No meditation except the
chop, chop of my knife.
No transcendence
but a wonderful soup
to keep my begging bowl full.