Poetry

Things That Need Water

Faucet, pump, irrigation line

Twin fawns, born late July

Wood floor boards after foot traffic

Dahlias in full bloom

Sweet Pea seedlings in Grandma’s enamelware pot

Native seeds littering forest floors

Travel-weary salmon

The child, returning home from school

My dog, who drinks most before going outside

Visiting Monarch butterflies

Dry ground

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.” Vaclav Havel,

Things That Need Water

Are also things that could use a prayer,

That is to say–most everything needs water.

Prayer is like water.

The dry ground in late summer

The person exhausted by a life of never enough

The child striving to look like others; to ‘fit’

The one who feels so lonely.

All these need water, which is prayer.

Like water, prayer changes things,

Provides hope,

Which is not to say with certainty

That things will turn out well,

But that certainly a thing is

worth striving toward no matter how it turns out.

My Type of Gratitude List, No. 6

July 1, 2023: I am grateful for the number one, which does not exist on this typewriter. I use the Roman Numeral. Of course this leaves me so grateful that I am able to improvise.

July 4, 2023: I am grateful for friends who understand my sensitivity to sound as well as Pearl’s special sensitivities. This is a challenging day for us and I am grateful for friends who respect us and understand.

July 5, 2023: I am grateful for language. Also, I am grateful for a certain 2 year old who loves language so much that the words cocoon and raccoon, when said together, makes him laugh.

July 10, 2023: I am grateful for children who tell me what they think. I trust children to be real with me, which means when one tells me I smile ‘like God’ I feel like I’ve been given a gift.

July 12, 2023: I am grateful for walls. Being able to paint on them as a canvas brings me great joy.

July 17, 2023: I am grateful for wood, bicycle spokes, rake tines and railroad tracks, not to mention the trains that ride them. All of these materials and tools make good ingredients for kalimbas (if you know a creative soul who knows how to make them).

July 18, 2023: I am grateful for the ocean and sea life; for the moon that creates the tide; for the sun.

July 21, 2023: I am grateful for toilets. Life would be shitty without them.

July 22, 2023: I am grateful for antibiotics.

July 24, 2023: I am grateful for avocados and those who harvest them.

July 25, 2023: I am grateful for perfect, ripe blueberries.

July 26, 2023: I am grateful for rivers and the water that defines them.

July 27, 2023: I am grateful for tea, and Japanese made glass tea pots that allow me to watch the leaves unfurl.

July 31, 2023: I am grateful for fresh figs, ripe and straight out of my friend’s yard to my door. I have never tasted candy so delicious.

Mountain Berries

You didn’t mention

these just-ripe blackberries

when you told me about

this tree-lined trail.

 

Neither the smell of

them warmed by the sun

nor their impossible

color were noted

 

(a color which can

only be described as:

‘August Mountain Blackberries

In the Shade of Evergreens’).

 

Maybe these berries

weren’t here when you hiked

this trail; maybe you didn’t

witness their perfect ripeness,

 

and maybe it’s me

who should be detailing

their succulence to you,

sharing their perfection.

 

But I can’t just now

I think, rolling another

just-ripe berry into my mouth–

these berries remain

 

a secret the bears

and I share between us

in the stillness of (and in

fellowship with) these trees.

Way Into the Unknown

This new form of poetry — a single piece of plain paper,

Dimensionless, like a formless plain.

The silence and darkness coupled together

In exact and precarious balance.

I am afraid of something.

After awhile I cease looking and a quiet voice can’t restrain

A shout as I catch the significance of the words.

 

After what seems like a lifetime, my mind occupied

With thoughts, the moment arrives:

The words come to life and leap off the paper, aloft

With clarity. They speed along their trajectory

Like a train racing through a tunnel and burn

Their way into the unknown,

Which is always the most dangerous part.

 

(Jaqui Eicher, copyright 2018)

How To Saunter

(For Owen)

Forget what you left behind if possible; think ‘wander’,

Look ahead, nonchalantly, toward the path,

Only as far as the flowers and

the birds that have nested near the climbing hydrangea.

While we’re on the subject of birds,

study them quietly — let them teach

you about what’s important; notice

their priorities (do they spend time worrying over small things?).

Sauntering requires that you dismiss

the minute, mundane worries of life

and remain free to inhabit

the joyful moments of life instead.

To enjoy life, even the slightest bit,

one must saunter.

Wind Work

To be is too much work.

I crave the wild and wistful wind;

Some days my edginess creeps

in so far — there’s nothing

for it but to go out and let

the wind do its work:

soul building

grace restoring

dust clearing.

The stronger the wind, the longer

I linger. I lean on its breath.

Then, when the world again is

still and the creatures return

to industry, I feel myself moving

through and through the trees;

around and down the river,

into open meadow green and

I am as free and wild again

as the zephyrous wind.

Algebra

Afraid of life, she listens to

them tell her how different

she is; she takes it to heart

at first. Watch her try, try

try to be like them but

no matter how hard she tries,

she is not like them.

Somewhere along the equation

she realizes that different than

is not less than;

it is equal to. Sometimes (maybe

mostly) different than, plus

different than equals a sum

far greater.

The Enclosure of the Heart

Like a sprouting seed, love climbs

the enclosure of the heart

that has at last allowed

the light of grace to reach it,

tendrils — fragile and leggy —

pull it up and out

of its dark place,

deep in the dank ragged

edges of loneliness

until it flowers, spilling

all its fragrance and color

on any one who will stop and listen.

Up From the River Smiling

A friend once told me she met

her future husband just after

a turbulent river tossed

her out of her small kayak.

My friend, being who she is, showed

up from beneath the icy water

laughing — her bright smile stretched

across her triumphant face.

The man, knowing his own need,

asked, “who is this woman

that came up from dangerous

water smiling?”

He asked to meet her on dry ground.

They loved well and married,

carried out to the sea of life

by that river-smiling moment.

I wonder how I, being who I am,

could meet another who is able

to come up from the river smiling.

I’m familiar with icy water, dangerous

and turbulent; I watch it carefully,

hopeful to someday see the one

who comes up from the river

with a smile on his face.

Listen

Listen to me,

Since you are willing to risk all,

Though the earth dissolve,

What have we to fear?

All power on earth can be overcome

By the will of Love,

Which is so soft that it melts

at a touch.

So splendidly beautiful that

the embrace will forever be

rooted far down into the earth.