Thunderheads over Troy
River before me glinting, rippling
like a hammered band of unprecious metal.
On the far bank an untended garden of brick and stone,
wild growth of tangled roads,
squat mansard roofs and flat-tops,
spires and steeples, Romanesque piles.
Farther back, hills loom up -
great green shaggy things,
villages tucked into shady crevices.
The zenith shines a blue so clear,
it’s a wonder the redtailed hawk has anything to bear him up.
Towering over softened peaks of ancient mountains,
firehouses and flea markets strewn along their valleys -
gleaming cumulo-nimbus columns -
five pillars in the east, hold up a darkening ceiling,
here and there a flicker, fast and faint.
Sun is on my back when the first drops land,
eeking that damp, acrid smell from the asphalt
that sets my nostrils tingling.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Spaces between
You fill in pebbles
between the rocks,
sand between the pebbles,
dust between the grains of sand.
Somewhere in there, grassroots find purchase,
and sip water from the corridors that twist and wind.
The pocket spaces.
Should you pour the finest dust,
shake it down, tamp it in,
til you can’t pry a particle from the compacted mass,
still, it’s more empty than not.
Below, beyond, and deep inside the layers available to seeing,
each mote of matter holds its ground against all others,
preserving the preponderance of void,
which being only shapes and structures.
Silence cradles sound; stillness enfolds motion.
We have not run out of room
in the spaces between.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Jamien
My cousin died,
which was the beginning of our relationship.
We shared a last name,
love of the sea,
of tea,
of bright colors, funky hats, of quirky domesticity.
At one point, she’d had cancer
as many years as I’d been alive.
She had sons with the same sidelong grin I sometimes see in the mirror.
And then one year,
metastatic cells overcame maternal stubbornness.
She began to die.
She did it the same way she did everything else -
brimful of madcap serenity
that spilled over the edges of her deathbed,
splashed into the sea,
lapped at the feet of strangers and distant relations.
Less firmly deluded of my immortality,
I drink tea in her name,
go to the shore to put my bare feet in the sand from her footprints,
try my hand at knitting, poetry, singing, Aikido,
at dancing in streets, changing the world, falling in love.
Someday all that I am will spill over.
I will paint the sky in careless, brilliant hues before I wash away.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Sky-gazing
Rain warm as tears
- my face up-tipped, sky-gazing
as I turn, feel the world turning -
slicks my skin, trickles off me, drips flinging from my fingertips.
Sluices down between my breasts, becoming brine with bodysalt.
This is not the day I planned, not the answer I was looking for.
This is soft mud between my toes and thunder
mellow-rumbling from the hills.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Urban Renewal
Brown paint on brownstone
peels like a sunburn.
At the corner, a stack of slates slumps into a pile.
Wrought iron curlicues shed black-brittle flecks,
revealing rust in scabby patches.
In battered urns beside the steps, grow geraniums
lush and prodigal with scarlet.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Hudson and Mohawk
Two rivers, and at the confluence, a marshy lake.
The eddies and battles for precedence
- who is first to slip round the rock,
to dip the branch, to stroke the shore -
take place underneath.
In the sunset, the surface, like your eyes,
reflects an unwavering gleam,
deflecting pursuit
of all the subtle colors stirred up deep below.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Whiteface and Mirror Lake
Snaggletooth peaks carved out by glacier claws -
A cloud has sunk itself into a crevice,
slipping sideways down the valley
to the lake to breathe the coolness.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Moses in the morning
Warm weightiness in velvet fur -
the rock dove cur-cooing on the ledge beneath the window
has you wakeful, ears pricked.
You nestle deeper into the crook of my knee,
drawing me up from dreams.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Tahawus in April
Shaking the tent flap shatters crystal lace
the moist breath of night deposited.
The hearth that roared last night is quiet,
tamely licks the percolator on the grate.
Behind filigree of bare branches the pale sun
casts rainbows through the drops that hang from twig-tips.
A peregrine falcon shriek-shriek-shrieks its kill,
crossing overhead as we sit down to breakfast.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2009
Uncertain Slant of Light
Dawn coming through the drapes in November
is a tenuous and fragile thing -
much more than it is in August.
Lacking color, unsubstantial,
like a grocery store tomato -
the craving
is not slaked, so much as sharpened.
(c) Sarah Morehouse 2008
