NIGHT SKYE M.a.g.a.z.i.n.e
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TOMATOES
Seeds of change sprout in the dark
of the moon, magic at night
in my head. Vivid and surreal,
they burgeon, swelling to
lush tomatoes -- earliana, brandywine,
brimmer, oxheart -- lolling on vines
or to Inca rainbow maize, amaranth
bowed with wind, fields of
sunflowers drawn toward light.
And I dance amid them
singing like the immortal child
I once was, pagan who sported
shamelessly, who ? god unto
herself ? pressed a palm
to her own ripe heart, ruddy
and many-chambered as a tomato.
She started early, seeking potions and
handfuls of charmed seeds that might
grow her into one
who could harrow then harvest joy.
Purple Echoes
After the break, the weatherman said,
he'd talk about purple echoes:
tornadoes careening through the south,
leveling cities and farms as well as
trailer parks. When they struck,
cows floated Chagall-like on air
with cars, rooftops, baby beds. Showers of
shattered glass rained from the sky.
Godzilla, an 8-foot lizard, escaped
from his cage in Virginia. Nearby,
a monkey was eating stray cats.
A stillness in the eye. Though not
transported to Oz, she was floating, too.
Weightless for a moment, buffeted
by purple echoes of her own:
severed poppies brushing her cheeks,
the meadow scented by wild azaleas
where she knelt on a white rock
by the stream, winged dryad lithe
and unsuspecting, pre-Raphaelite hair
bright on her back and shoulders.
Before the storm. Before the end.
In the science museum, the tornado surges
and forms in its plexiglass cylinder,
clear image braiding upwards
against gray-black walls. No lizards
or monkeys or showers of sharp glass.
No ache from the perfume of white azaleas.
Instead, something contained
and controllable. Something halted
with the flick of a hand
or allowed to rise. Beauty
but no echoes. And no hint of purple.
Labyrinth
Winding paths, rosette-shaped heart
at the center of its quadrants.
His sin, she confided is unforgivable.
There's one at Chartres, but the Celts
designed them, the Hopis,
Tibetan Buddhists, Jewish mystics.
The way is all. It quiets your mind.
Watch your feet. Walk and breathe.
A Nordic sin, sin of a northern soul.
To find yourself, you first must lose it
in ever-smaller concentric circles.
Five, I told her, four, three, two, one.
MATIN AND VESPER
At the beginning of day,
rubythroat and trill of a tree frog.
Cicadas blade songs of immortality
as on an ancient Chinese scroll,
and sun through fog
burns a promise of warmth.
Steps on a path are straight
as we angle into light, hearing
leaf-whisper of
verses to be hymned.
When darkness swallows light,
a bat rises lofting
his delicate, webbed prison.
Waterstriders skim,
and a rising bass fins circles
on the surface of a lake.
Wrapped in the blanket of evening,
we watch the circles, listen
as they lap to infinity.
Stay. Keep watch with us.
Susan Terris' new collection of poetry FIRE IS FAVORABLE
TO THE DREAMER will be published by Cedar Hill Publications
in 2002. Other recent books include CURVED SPACE (La Jolla
Poets Press); EYE OF THE HOLOCAUST (Arctos Press);
ANGELS OF BATAAN (Pudding House Publications); and
NELL'S QUILT (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Her journal
publications include *The Antioch Review, The Midwest
Quarterly, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, Nimrod, Southern
California Anthology*, and *Rattapallax*.
On-line she has had work (partial listing) in *Recursive Angel,
Conspire, Web Del Sol, Perihelion, Poetry Daily, New Works
Review, The Blue Penny Quarterly, Blue Moon Review, In Vivo,
Switched-on Gutenberg, PoetryMagazine.com, PoetryBay, On
the Page, Ariga:Visions, Zero City, Wise Women's Web*, &
*Zuzu's Petals*.
Editor with CB Follett of *RUNES, A Review Of Poetry *.
Premier issue, December 2001, features poems by Jane
Hirschfield, David St. John, Richard Wilbur, Ronald Wallace,
Eleanor Wilner, Stephen Corey and many others.
