Ellen Porter
12/30/07
Transformed By Sadness

When I study the poems
of the Japanese
my being is transformed
by their ripping sadness.

Early in my life
I must have suffered loss
so great I don’t remember it,
yet I recognize deep sorrow
as if it were in me
firstborn.


Ellen Porter
1/07/08
Unnamed Apologies

Today’s nights
shorter now than solstice days
shuffle toward
morning sun.

Words find no
comfort today
in ink.
They rasp, industrial
as a wasp’s
many roomed paper nest.

Without rejections
(for nothing is submitted)
poetry stumbles awkward
across blue-lined paper.
I, too,
(were it my journal)
would refuse
to publish.