blue skies poetry

I will give you green
in its hundred shades,
from the barest hint
threaded along the growing golden stalk,
to the near-black shadow
caught between thick spruce needles

I will give you light,
the hard-edged morning’s
etched exposure focused
through dew’s magnifying glass,
and the flat, direct burning of noon,
and this afternoon amber,
flowing ever lower over
the lush and liquid grid of these fields.

I will give you brushwork,
from sweeping and generous
to delicate and precise,
painting these contoured hills
onto flat prairie canvas,
where they rise
like a spirit uplifting.

I will give you the sound
of many wild hands clapping,
the echoing applause of the hills.
But when ecstasy
gives way to deep listening
you will recognize the sound
of your own wild heart,
echoing the heartbeat of the land,
the parallel sighs and undulations
of your own chambers of wonder,
a gallery where the masterwork
of this sweet landscape will live
as long as you do, as long
as your memory beats.

~ Deborah Lawson

Deborah Lawson, a freelance editor and published non-fiction writer, has been a private poet since high school days. Four years ago she “went public” in Edmonton’s charismatic and supportive poetry community, where the energy that comes from hanging out with other writers invigorates her own creative development. She enjoys experimenting with a variety of poetic forms. Poetry deepens her ability to engage with and pay attention to life, and allows her to be “at home” in a world where her affinity for words, metaphor and meaning is welcomed rather than considered peculiar. In 2007, one of Deborah’s poems was chosen as Poetry Winner in the Other Voices 20th Anniversary Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry Contest.

Filed under: Deborah Lawson, Writing the Land by akublik Date 2 September, 2007