Ellen Porter
2/7/06
Varieties of Blue

Marigold orange, seacliff blue
flowers in a cup and saucer on unplaned redwood.

It is all my attention can contain
pulled and wheedled, an impossible shrinking of opposites.

She draws me unwilling to the subject of films
a story of love, a tragedy I must, she says, endure.

She does not know how close I am to implosion
cancer forcing simplicity.

I cannot bear artistic pain
(the depression, she assures, will only last a day.)

Spinning slowly, losing, dizzying downward
I grasp for the marigold orange, the cerulean blue.

I do not have a day to spare.


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.