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
2/26/08
The Doing of Things

There are three ways
to get things done
now that I am sick.
I didn’t go outside all day yesterday,
but needed to make my bed,
fill my eating bowl and
fetch my water.

There are some things
that some days
I can do myself
and I feel useful and strong.
I must do what I can to
still feel alive.

There are some things
that some days
I need to ask help
in the doing.
I ask and it is given.
I feel grateful but lazy.
Can I forgive myself the asking?

There are some things
that some days
you do for me without words.
Both know I am unable.
I weep inside at my disability
and at the greatness of your love.


Ellen Porter
12/19/07
The early morning chronicle of poems

needing to be read
not confined to a notebook
to be burned later
at my cremation,
Susan gathered together,
she excited and reverent,
and brought them to the screen:
a computer capable of light and life.

And seventy-two people
dipped into my words
found hope or despair.
And the chronicles lived on
fresher than the world news,
shining benign and malevolent,
read into the steady vitality
of the souls of strangers.