Ellen Porter
4/05/08
April Afternoon

April and no fools,
pockets empty of all
but what’s given and received.
I stroll amicably
down spring paths
no dirt blackened snow.
Only crocus buds
their green heads poking up
though vernal freshness,
vernal earth.

I could not love you
more than these,
coming fresh and swollen
like new pounded dough.
I could not love you more
than crisp and browned
and butter-smeared bread
cut fresh and browned
for early afternoon eating.


Ellen Porter
2/5/08
For Mary Without Anne

You fly to a far city, far flung
from those who love you.
Your sister is dead.
I cannot be with you,
nor would you choose it.
But as cool rain beats
on my winter window,
I send you drops of succor
for your rasping and wounded heart.


Ellen Porter
2/8/08
In Relief of Pain
Prose Poem

Sitting in chapel, pain drilling a hole in my chest, I wonder how it would be to fall over, here, in god’s place and die. When I don’t hurt, I know it is not my heart that aches but something more benign—and so I don’t panic at the pain but breathe in shallow gasps hoping no one will notice, hoping no one will call for help. And when my heart aches, pain in my soul because poems do not flow but only alphabets of words, I hope someone will notice, I hope someone will help. Either way, the pain is interminable for twenty minutes and then a quiet vacuum fills the void.


Ellen Porter
1/29/08
Matterhorn

We walk in alpine forests.
There will be full moon tonight
and he will attempt to climb
to the top of the mountain.
I will watch from the alpine forests.
We will leave me in the alpine forests.
He will not gain the peak.


Ellen Porter
1/16/08
Oceanside Fire

I walk the long beach
at Montana de Oro.
Over my shoulder

the hill lifts its flanks
absorbing the colors of
new burning fire:

the sweet gold of California poppy,
the sturdy lavender cones of lupine.
Running through heaven

I stop suddenly to breathe in
the holiest of holies;
to witness the red-blossomed

blood of the Lamb:
two hundred red-winged blackbirds
in full piping song.