January 2018
Penny Harter
penhart@2hweb.net
penhart@2hweb.net
I'm a poet and writer living in the South Jersey shore area. I moved here from North Jersey in January of 2009 after the 2008 death of my husband William J. (Bill) Higginson, poet and author of The Haiku Handbook, to be closer to my daughter and family. My work has appeared in many anthologies and journals, both print and on-line, and in twenty-some collections (including chapbooks). I read at the Dodge Festival in 2010, and have enjoyed two poetry residencies at VCCA (January 2011; March 2015). Please visit my blog: http://penhart.wordpress.com and my website: www.2hweb.net/penhart. My newest books are Recycling Starlight and The Resonance Around Us: http://mountainsandriverspress.org/TitleView.aspx
This Morning's Birds
This morning’s birds sail
above the drainage ditch,
black bodies rising
and falling as one,
as once they wheeled
from Brueghel’s wooded hills
to hang in dark clouds
above the river.
These winter birds are foam
at the planet’s edge,
waves of them pushing
against the sky, arcing up
and out until forced back
by air too thin, by gravity,
to the constant trees.
We are all their forest.
[Previously published in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
Two Ravens
Two ravens circle above the snow,
blacker than before.
Some dead thing is down there
in the wasteland where last summer,
a few pieces of cardboard, an old rug,
and the ashes of a camp fire
told of someone’s home.
This morning, an early snow fills
the tin can that glowed like a star
each time the hot butt of a cigarette
found its dark mouth,
and snow covers the cardboard house
spread like a picnic cloth beneath
the juniper in the arroyo.
Even the pack of wild dogs
whose dark barking helped the sun rise
is lost in this snow, this radiant snow
whiter than before because two ravens
bless it with black wings.
[Previously published in an earlier version in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press,1996]
Winter Storm, Santa Fe
Somewhere up the hill a neighbor's dog barks.
Snow swims through us shepherding the cold
while above the clouds the full moon turns
a dark face toward the stars.
Shadows shift under the juniper.
Sparrows sleep near the twisted trunk.
Curled against your back I lie with you
in a warm bed, our down quilt of white
feathers plucked from frozen geese,
blood gone black on the ice.
The moon sets red over the Earth's rim.
Drifts slope from all our doors,
and the wind in the corners of our room
wants us now.
[Previously published, with a different title, in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
Owl Dream
In my dream an owl
beats spread wings
against my window
promising a share
of her kill.
Small bones
lodge in my throat.
Blood and sinew
stain my tongue.
Her wings move faster now,
a white blizzard
against the glass.
Her eyes glare
over a harsh beak.
She wants my fingers,
little animals that squirm
on their own in the dark
of my sleep.
She wants to tell me
it’s all right,
that we can both have
everything we need
from the same field.
[Previously published in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
This morning’s birds sail
above the drainage ditch,
black bodies rising
and falling as one,
as once they wheeled
from Brueghel’s wooded hills
to hang in dark clouds
above the river.
These winter birds are foam
at the planet’s edge,
waves of them pushing
against the sky, arcing up
and out until forced back
by air too thin, by gravity,
to the constant trees.
We are all their forest.
[Previously published in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
Two Ravens
Two ravens circle above the snow,
blacker than before.
Some dead thing is down there
in the wasteland where last summer,
a few pieces of cardboard, an old rug,
and the ashes of a camp fire
told of someone’s home.
This morning, an early snow fills
the tin can that glowed like a star
each time the hot butt of a cigarette
found its dark mouth,
and snow covers the cardboard house
spread like a picnic cloth beneath
the juniper in the arroyo.
Even the pack of wild dogs
whose dark barking helped the sun rise
is lost in this snow, this radiant snow
whiter than before because two ravens
bless it with black wings.
[Previously published in an earlier version in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press,1996]
Winter Storm, Santa Fe
Somewhere up the hill a neighbor's dog barks.
Snow swims through us shepherding the cold
while above the clouds the full moon turns
a dark face toward the stars.
Shadows shift under the juniper.
Sparrows sleep near the twisted trunk.
Curled against your back I lie with you
in a warm bed, our down quilt of white
feathers plucked from frozen geese,
blood gone black on the ice.
The moon sets red over the Earth's rim.
Drifts slope from all our doors,
and the wind in the corners of our room
wants us now.
[Previously published, with a different title, in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
Owl Dream
In my dream an owl
beats spread wings
against my window
promising a share
of her kill.
Small bones
lodge in my throat.
Blood and sinew
stain my tongue.
Her wings move faster now,
a white blizzard
against the glass.
Her eyes glare
over a harsh beak.
She wants my fingers,
little animals that squirm
on their own in the dark
of my sleep.
She wants to tell me
it’s all right,
that we can both have
everything we need
from the same field.
[Previously published in my collection Turtle Blessing, La Alameda Press, 1996]
© 2018 Penny Harter
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