blue skies poetry

how  may i melt into this landscape    this flat flat land    the gas flares dotting
the grass tabletop    like kids’ birthday candles    one here    one there    spotty
and fuming    the crunchy crabgrass    three mows a season    the dusty earth    

this is not my home yet i stretch for the sky uncaps me    my head heart floats up
flies up free from all its Eastern  shoulds and dos    here there is today    now
though that changes quickly    or not at all   the point is:    be prepared for
everything    for all kinds of weather    in any season    snow or sleet or singeing
hot scorchers    even when it’s wet it’s dry    the earth pushes away the water
so it sits on the surface pooled    like mercury escaped from a thermometer   until
the clay grabs it    until it is driven down by tractor tires    churning and
blending   gumbo    the kind of muck you can’t stop in   like quicksand    keeps
you on the move on the hoof    
alkaline leeches mark empty sloughs   cracked and crater-like   no water in these 
tracks these holes    these birthday basins    no newborn baby-smooth skin    just 
crowsfeet and crone’s wrinkles    like mummified apples    all ancient   the 
sweetness puckered out
i swim in this dryness    dive into this dust    skinny dip in sage and spear grass  
springboard up    into this sky borne sea

~ Kathy Fisher

Kathy Fisher practices poetry out loud. Her collaboration with the Raving Poets Band sparked the production of her first spoken word CD, think of me naked, in 2001. Her voice has been heard on CBC, CJSR and CKUA. In 2002, she appeared nationwide on CBC’s alternative arts program, ZeD TV, in its inaugural week.

Filed under: Kathy Fisher, Writing the Land by akublik Date 26 September, 2007