Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Driving West” by Linda Pastan

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

Though the landscape subtly changes,
the mountains are marching in place.

The grasses take on the fading
yellows of the sun,

and cows with their sumptuous eyes
litter the fields as if they had grown there.

We have driven for hours
through bluing shadows,

as if the continent itself leaned west
and we had no choice but to follow the old ruts—

the wagons and horses, the iron snort
of a locomotive. We are the pioneers

of our own histories, drawn
to the horizon as if it waited just for us

the way the young are drawn
to the future, the old to the past.

“Driving West” by Linda Pastan from Traveling Light. © Norton, 2011.

“all that” by Charles Bukowski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

the only things I remember about
New York City
in the summer
are the fire escapes
and how the people go
out on the fire escapes
in the evening
when the sun is setting
on the other side
of the buildings
and some stretch out
and sleep there
while others sit quietly
where it’s cool.

and on many
of the window sills
sit pots of geraniums or
planters filled with red
geraniums
and the half-dressed people
rest there
on the fire escapes
and there are
red geraniums
everywhere.

this is really
something to see rather
than to talk about.

it’s like a great colorful
and surprising painting
not hanging anywhere
else.

“all that” by Charles Bukowski from Open All Night. © Black Sparrow Press, 2002.

Fire Escapes via Wikipedia
Fire Escapes via Wikipedia

“Always learn poems by heart… (Fitch)

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote2 Comments

“Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they’ll make your soul impervious to the world’s soft decay.”

– Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Break” by Dorianne Laux

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

We put the puzzle together piece
by piece, loving how one curved
notch fits so sweetly with another.
A yellow smudge becomes
the brush of a broom, and two blue arms
fill in the last of the sky.
We patch together porch swings and autumn
trees, matching gold to gold. We hold
the eyes of deer in our palms, a pair
of brown shoes. We do this as the child
circles her room, impatient
with her blossoming, tired
of the neat house, the made bed,
the good food. We let her brood
as we shuffle through the pieces,
setting each one into place with a satisfied
tap, our backs turned for a few hours
to a world that is crumbling, a sky
that is falling, the pieces
we are required to return to.

—Dorianne Laux, from Awake, 2001. University of Arkansas Press. Copyright 2001 by Dorianne Laux.

“North Star” by Sheila Packa

On By Christina's WordsIn Art, Poetry

In Hanko, Finland
a young woman boards
the vessel in the Baltic
for a ship across the Atlantic.
The North Star shines in the sky.
She’s carrying in her valise
a change of clothes
a packet of seeds
and the sauna dipper.
Distance pours between constellations
between English words on her tongue
through storms and sun.
In New York City, she buys
a one way ticket
boards the train going
across the continent
arrives on an inland sea.
The winter ground underfoot
is familiar with frost
as she transfers to a northbound
along the Vermilion Trail
in Minnesota.
Ahead of her waits a man
a house to be built
and a fire that burns it down.
Ahead, eleven children
to bear, a few she must bury,
the cows in the barn
needing to be milked.
Unbroken ground only hers to till.
Above her, the North Star
inside the aurora borealis, northern
banners waving welcome —

“North Star” by Sheila Packa, from Night Train Red Dust: Poems of the Iron Range. © Wildwood River Press, 2014.

Northern Lights - Aurora Borealis Norway by Svein-Magne Tunli. Via Wiki Commons.
Northern Lights – Aurora Borealis Norway by Svein-Magne Tunli. Via Wiki Commons.