|
No 3 - 1987
|
|
   |
| |
| Miriam Sagan |
  |
|
| Miriam In The Bosque |
|
|
|
Water, the spilt silk of marsh
On desert, bare hills, peaks of snow
That might be Africa, the Arctic
South of Socorro, New Mexico
Where snow geese drift upon the bank
In avalanche, like a false north
That draws the eye and compass point
A moving pole of feathers, snow capped
And in the sky the sandhill cranes
The blue-grey crowd
Kyrie-ing, purring like cats
Awkward, elegant
A silk kimono thrown against the clouds
10,000 cranes
patterned like origami papers
Folded by school children at Hiroshima
And we were there
My friend, a woman with my name
Two women beneath the flight of cranes
The golden pheasant in the shadow
The mule deer in the scrub
We who had no place to go but home
In scarves and hats, absurdly human
As sunset caught the low red bush
Not really bulrushes, she said
And who but us
Could care for bulrushes so much
Or think of Egypt in the Bosque marsh
And Pharoh’s daughter with her slender hands
Pulling out the hero we had set afloat
By heron, ibis, and by sandhill flight. |
page(s) 4
|
|
|
|
