Broken Art

Broken Art
by T.L. Stokes



Here in the grass breast of my mother will I lay my head,
sorrowing for seed and stillness. Here among the wet
breath will I whisper an old thought and dream while she
holds me again. Far from the broken thighs, oh heavy
longing. Our children lost in the rubble. Far
from stones and paintings turned to another form
of art and grave, I will leave my family, they sink
from my heart. I will be pretty on what I think stable.
In dreaming I fly, in sleep I awaken. Here, far
from islands and oceans. Here in the grass breast
of my mother, will I lay my head.




for Chile

New poem titled "The Hill" at Flood Water Photography - www.floodwaterphotography.blogspot.com.

Simplicity

http://www.floodwaterphotography.blogspot.com

See the new poem "Simplicity" at Flood Water Photography.

The Alpaca Farm

There is a mouse in the house. Louise screamed and bolted herself in her room. Molly the white cat cried to come in. We let Kitten have free roam of the house at night. You could hear her running and leaping, sliding across the old wood floor. It's been two nights now. Kitten makes acrobatic sounds in the middle of the night, the mouse must be fast.

This morning the sky was filled with light. Even now it butters the fields. The alpacas blink and watch me open the nesting box door, two eggs lie in the straw. I make oatmeal to thank the hens.

Here are a few photos from this morning. Enjoy!

Anonymous

in celebration of birth

Today, fifty-some years ago, twenty four how I feel, millions the age of my spirit, I was pushing my elbow into my mother, trying to make a little more space, and sighed, the sigh an unborn baby does without air, kind of like a hiccup into water, all silent, soft movements, and I thought the thoughts of unthinking, before words came one by one to crowd a new fresh brain, and I readied to flow downstream into my new life. Into my mother's arms, my father's embrace, into the air, the loudness. Into the land of corners and hard surfaces. And I would always seek oceans and rivers, I would return over and over to songs of water for my hungry ears.

Here I am on the alpaca farm, driving daily along Patterson Creek, to the Snoqualmie and Raging Rivers at Fall City, up the long hill to the Falls, through Snoqualmie and into North Bend. All these rivers. They are my sisters. My mother. I watch the light from the broad sky bend down, it shimmers on wet pavement, streaks across the water. Warms my face.

Here's to life. Thank you for being here with me.

for my daughters Heather & Kelsey

T.L. Stokes

Flood Water Photography - the Blog

I want to introduce you to a new up and coming blog titled: Flood Water Photography. Photographs from around Fall City, Snoqualmie, North Bend and outlying areas as well as periodic comments and contemporary poetry. Floodwaterphotography.blogspot.com

Before Summer Comes

And in the last gold tongues
falling from the open mouth
of the ridge,

shuffled into shades
of deepening black,

sun, the cloaked thief,
leaves

with eyes turning away from
us beggars--

always clambering
for warmth--

never happy to have
our light stolen.