Friday, June 12, 2020

In the Woods


In the Woods










Detritus pitched every which-
way, dark rot and loam laid
bare. Troubled patches
everywhere along the path. 

This is wild turkeys’ work.
Tossing leaf cover aside,
grubbing around like a rush
of lady shoppers at a sale bin.




Dog has no curiosity about
turkey scratch. Instead she
inspects tall weed or grass
(top to bottom) with her

omnipotent nose, quivering
moist planet of  jet beads.
Being thorough, she re-sniffs
(bottom to top) with dainty

precision for traces of the four-
footed. Deer, fox, raccoon,
rabbit. Bobcat. Bear. Coyote.
I dodge a scat pile   or two,

dreading most the coyote’s
tarry rope, clotted with bones
and fur, the final turd’s wispy
flourish   a killer’s last word.





Cathy Larson Sky 
April 04, 2020
PHOTO CREDITS:  
Scratch: National Wild Turkey Federation
Dog in woods: Cathy Larson Sky
Coyote scat: 2013 Kim A. Cabrera





Sunday, March 29, 2020



Volunteer
                
Nobody planted her
a bird shit out a peach pit
while stealing holly berries
and this maverick
poked her head out
from the holly bush
two springs ago





I had the shears ready
but couldn’t cut
beguiled by the deep fresh
pink of her blossoms
   riotous pink
and so early coming
I left her there  


















Last summer I asked
the Mexican yard man
to take her down
but he said he couldn’t
   held up one branch
its leafy underbelly
heavy with pale
fruit pods

that in August
ripened   their
perfume drifting
on the air  ambrosial
the peaches  small
and blushing
their white fruit
three bites of
heaven



Now she springs back
   her ravishing blooms
shame the pest-weary
weeping cherry
























and the old apple 
tree who
couldn’t muster
this year and cringes
under a scourge of lichen 




pix and poem copyright Cathy Larson Sky 03/29/2020

Sunday, August 4, 2019

In Memory of Tommy

On the one year anniversary of his death, this poem:





An Fear DraĆ­ochta

For Tommy Peoples, Donegal-born Irish fiddler (1948-2018)
  
He tucks his fiddle under his chin,
then brings the bow.
From the first notes
there’s a shock of naked sound,
music released from blood
and breath – silver flash of a
trout wrenched from a lake,
streaming bright water.

Tommy’s fixed gaze rests on
the fiddle’s neck while his
fingers press and release. He
sits very still, the wildness
in him moving only the bow.

Weeping, cajoling, a bird flutters
from branch to branch, trilling from
a tree’s highest limbs. Pause, then
a refrain erupts from deep in 
recesses of blossom and leaf.
At dusk, from shadowed hedges
drifts a last homing chant.
Where are you?
Where are you?

            Enchantment tiptoes among us
            as we listen, as morning fog
            creeps inland from the sea
            to cross stone and grass.
            Salt-laden, story-laden, it
            joins the grazing cattle, mingles
            with the steam of their hides.


           

Portrait of Tommy by Martin Fox of Asheville, NC
Cliffs of Moher Photo by Mark de Jong on Unsplash
Poem copyright Cathy Larson Sky  (August 4, 2019)

Sunday, July 7, 2019





Turning
~ for Patrick


It was the elegant way his hair swelled from his temples,
fell to frame the broad rock of his forehead, the way

his teeth clamped on a cigar, there at the lathe while curls
of rosewood dropped to the floor, helpless and fragrant,

black cinders of ebony flew up and speckled his beard, and
those goggles he wore, the imprints they left above his ears.

            Strangeness I could sink into like a long bath.

It was the click of his old house’s black iron latches,
twist of the narrow stairs that disclosed the upstairs

as a country apart from the rooms below. And it
was the dark third floor landing under the eaves,

with its dank, sprung love seat, the busy desperation
of squirrels trapped between the floorboards. It was

when he asked me to stay for breakfast -- overdone
scrambles, toast, on a chipped plate. I sipped black

coffee while, from the roof, a whippoorwill turned
its mad song like a wheel, circling, almost shouting.



Copyright Cathy Larson Sky (poem first appeared in Pinesong, North Carolina Poetry Society Awards, 2019) Photo of Patrick by Cathy Larson Sky. Whipporwill by eBird.

Friday, May 24, 2019

















Moon Speaks


In the rhyme, the cow jumps over me,
her udder wagging a milk milk rain.
A blasted cat saws music on a violin.
A little mongrel snickers, a dish elopes
with a piece of flatware. It’s not easy
being confined by nursery twaddle.
Know who I am.


I pull and the sea rises to meet. Gulls,
pelicans fly low, looking for a quick
fish, schools of plenty. On the other
side of Earth, oceans swell, expand,
strain to escape gravity. What push-
pull there is in me. What tit for tat.
















I’m that urge that dissolves, as butter
slides, into nooks and crannies of a break-
fast crumpet, its tiny hollows designed
to net desires. If you like, smear with
raspberry, cherry, currant jams. Eat.
Delicious with tea and cream.














Come.
Slip into my blue-tinted shadows, into
the fable of you. Whisper spider web
riddles and water spells, read messages
in wet stones. Count your unborn grand-
children in the lines of your palm.














Mornings, wash your face in the dew,
find luminous new ways to be.
Hope’s a white kitten chasing its tail.
Look.
A pale rose sprouts between your brows.


















Poem copyright cathy larson sky 2019
Photo credits:

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash     The full yellow mooon
Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash   The jam on toast
Photo by michael podger on Unsplash   The spider web
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash  The rose