Erie Chapman
Wings of sun
stir the heather
on the hills above the heath,
heart’s whips.
One 1949 afternoon wasn’t enough,
I realize,
revisiting you a half century later,
nor are all the leaves on that one branch
of copper beech or the whole tree,
elephant-skinned, silk-wet.
To survive leaving Santa Barbara,
for the Midwest,
I needed more of your sun &, against purple,
a cloth moon folded & double-hung like the one
hammocked now in the midnight sky.
I needed the chance to lie near
your surf a while longer,
ear a conch shell,
nose raised to the seventh wave.
I love you for never discussing
your mystery,
folds of thigh-raised hills,
codes of poppies,
old whisperings stored behind each Eucalyptus ear.
I live, still, for the nape of breath beneath
your waves.
Your sentences line my house of mother time.
Your sand roasts, nearby peaks ice-knife, trees sky-scrape,
while you brew valleys of vines,
swing your hips in the wind,
salt your shoulders with the sea.
When I touch your wet as
you invited
me to do this morning,
I am clothed again in your secret.
Falls
Amy Bouse