from 'Salt Road'
Limestone Outcrop Birkrigg
You can sit on any
of these limestone outcrops
watching Meadow
Browns land on
harebells, Alpine ladies slippers
or tormentil, listen
to the wind
shushing bracken
as you sit
sheltered, dog to one side
panting, waiting for a stick
to be thrown.
Listen to larks rising,
pulling scent of
thyme from earth,
their song falling like water.
Should you ever get
bored with tormentil,
Meadow Browns or
harebells, raise your eyes,
look at horses on the horizon.
Sea-Jay or shire
mare, Annelise,
or white ones
folding over
mudflats and marram
as the tide licks its way
into gulleys and
channels.
Don’t be fooled,
it may look as though it’s creeping –
each wave searching
for a foothold
but underneath lies
its venom,
quicksand and currents.
Watch it
rush in under the viaduct at Plumpton,
or sit near the hide
at the south end of Walney
when it empties the Bay,
returns to the Irish
Sea.
Morecambe Bay
I've never seen this
before, oyster-catchers stretched out
in a well-drilled
line as the tide comes in
the roar of its dull
thunder powering the sea
that pours across
flat sands.
One moment
I could've sworn all
I saw was mud, but
as the sun
breaks cover
to draw the bay
silver, it’s the tide I see
bellying in with
sidewinder waves
and the birds,
black-and-white waiters with orange bills
dragging it in on
invisible filaments
like a table cloth
all along the edge
of the sea
over flat, grey mud
where waves curve
and birds scurry,
actors
in the twice daily
drama of drawing
the tide shorewards.
”we have come to the edge of the woods”
‘Jacklight’, Louise Erdrich
All day
I sit in the woods, dreaming
all day
and all night I sit,
my
hair on fire with the wind.
All day
I sit and sing.
All day
I sit my back against this pine
my
breathing slows, becomes sap
that
oozes up and down the tree’s spine.
All day
I sit and sing, my back to the wind.
All day
and all night the flashlights green
as
northern lights, all night I and the pines
weave a
song from alders and willows
that
live below the horizon.
All day
I claw my mind to the top of the woods
my hands
somersault over and under
become a
tapestry of limbs.
I and
the wind and the pines discover each other again.
Discover
the smell of men, their cigarette breath, their
unhinged
shotgun fingers triggered, crooked.
All day
I sit and weave the wind
my hair
becomes grey lichen
I hang
from branches.
My name
now is no name
my body
is white and silver
my name
is birch and alder.
My
tongue the sound of finches
my feet
sewn deep into earth
all day I grow deeper
from 'The Other Side of the Bridge'
me and janine
vickers shipyard,
barrow-in-furness, 1973
legs swinging and us licking ice creams
on the submarine dock our platform shoes
cool and wonderful and the men whistling
and shouting hey love, gi'e us a lick!
and when we turned and gave them you know a
sidelong look they laughed but me and janine
we knew they didn't mean anything by it they
were just joshing so anyhow we sat there
with our ice creams trickling down the side
of the cones golden and crisp the flakes falling
onto our mini skirts and we knew we'd have to
go back in soon but the day was warm it was warm
it was summer we were seventeen and we looked good
and we knew it and we loved it when the sailors came -
foreign submariners from argentina israel the middle east
and russia and us listening to their funny accents
and they came here to vickers to board their subs
and they came here to vickers to board their subs
and our own being built alongside revenge
and resolution and them going on patrol
in the baltic or the pacific and me and janine
dreaming of smuggling ourselves on board
to wake up in a foreign port somewhere --
which was just about when the hooter would go
and we had to go back in to our dusty offices
on the sub dock with the sun blocked out
on the sub dock with the sun blocked out
and snopake and pens and a deep pile of papers
with typos to correct.
Crossing the Prairie
There goes green corn
fierce as tornadoes
her cougar skin rippled
her bright eyes dazed with
dust-storms and headlights
she crosses the prairie on
her greencorn song of misery
upright as telegraph poles
lining the freeways.
Boy whistles wind
wind comes running
wind combs her back
of greengold corn
for a hundred miles
combs greencorn hair.
Nightstars crackle
moonwafer breaks open.
At dawn, a deluge of buffalo
at dawn, their ghosts cross the plain
at dawn, their notorious herd of steam
their outrageous breath
their sweat and blood
their sinews and bones.
These ghosts of buffalo.
These man-haunting bison.
Ghost bison pound earth
their hooves the pestle
this land their mortar.
Look! a city catapults
itself across the sky:
a wave of cities
a deluge of buffalo
a rivering of ghosts.
Grass cracked moons
grass tricky as coyote
grass spilling greengold
handsome as cougar
moon mirror cracks
buffalo stampede
into dust
into headlights.
My grandmother
painted buffalo
on the earth's curves
to teach me of the stars' courses
on the earth's curves
to teach me of the stars' courses
she sang of deer, stained her hair purple
and cried when I
asked her
where she went to
in her dreams
“bring me a bucket filled with feathers
“bring me a bucket filled with feathers
she told me
and I will drink them
and I will drink them
bring me a buckskin waterbag
filled with saltwater
and I will shape you a heaven
that will make you throw back your head
and laugh at canyons and coyotes
a heaven that will make your footprints spring to life in the sand
feel my years, here and here
great rivulets have streamed down my body
and the blood that burst from my belly
held your mother
held you
your body holds the buffalo I painted
a heaven that will make your footprints spring to life in the sand
feel my years, here and here
great rivulets have streamed down my body
and the blood that burst from my belly
held your mother
held you
your body holds the buffalo I painted
on the cave walls
at Lascaux.”
at Lascaux.”
from 'The Skin'
The Mushroom Woman drew a
muscle from her own thigh
(saying from Yanomami, Amazonas)
The
Mushroom Woman drew a muscle from her thigh
cream & brown
I remember
seeing her as she walked the dew
her thighs cool, smelling of earth.
The
Mushroom Woman drew a muscle from her thigh
made it into flesh
she
called it man
when she
saw what she had made, she wept
still
she shaped
him with cool fingers
nose
eyes
hair
lips
these she
parted
breathed him alive.
Poems also appear in: 'Running Before the Wind' Grey Hen Press, 'Peony Moon', 'For Rhino in a Shrinking World', 'Smoke' magazine, Burns' Window Project, Dumfries
Geraldine Green Salt Road
Geraldine Green Salt Road
please note; all poems are published, copyright Geraldine Green
Photos; Birkrigg Common, Kansas
all photos by Geraldine Green, copyright
Photos; Birkrigg Common, Kansas
all photos by Geraldine Green, copyright
