Sue Scalf - Poetry Readings 2006 - 2007
Voices
The roundness of a river stone
forms upon the river foam
a small oh,
and that is all it speaks.
Above the marsh
one low cloud
follows a tidal path
and makes no sound.
A curling leaf loops down,
touches the ground
and settles with a whisper
so quiet only grass can hear.
On winter shafts of air
when wind lifts fallen snow
to rise again, we cannot know
what seeds are speaking
what prayers.
Sue Scalf
The Children of Summer
"We write to taste life twice." - Anais Nin
White banks of clover
draw them like bees.
A welter of scratches
and skinned knees, children
know the bliss of running.
choosing sides, choosing friends,
making a chain of flowers,
patting out mud pies.
Dirt-smeared and sweaty,
they taste sour grass,
split maypops and hold
on their tongues the fleshy seeds,
pick passionflowers
that wind along the fence,
sip nectar from honeysuckle.
Making pacts, telling secrets,
they climb trees,
bombard their enemies
with pawpaws and chinaberries,
take prisoners, make treaties,
tumble and get up again,
cry and sing until the sun sets
and fireflies appear;
then heavy-limbed and sleepy,
children watch the moon,
a silver quarter they're too tired to spend
instead, they tuck it away
like a coin tied in a handkerchief
kept for ice cream.
Sue Scalf
Reprinted from What the Moon Knows
Christina's World
Alone is a word that stalls on the tongue,
chokes the throat; it is beyond solitude,
for it offers no choices. It is a landscape
barren and bleak, gone brown
with the last of the hay,
winter soon to come. Here she sits,
crippled, hair disheveled, one hand
clawing upward toward the house
on top of the treeless hill.
there is no sound but the wind,
the whirr of grasshoppers.
Gray as the empty sky, the house
with its open dooor calls her in.
Ladders lean against the roof.
She knows each room, the barn,
the clothesline, the world
from her window.
All is clean, scoured with light.
In the night, boards crack,
clapboards ring with cold.
Day and night her bones ache
with a namesless desire.
Sue Scalf
Reprinted from What the Moon Knows
