LIFE IS NOT STILL

On this pearl-pale morning, life is grinding
a path through the day like a cataract.
Finding bone, it roots in marrow. Finding
chaos, it blasts all maybe into fact.
It will buckle boulders and find its way
into crevices in a blind dark surge
like blood from a wound no pressure can stay.
Life shapes itself to its own brutal urge.
On a morning of mist tender as gauze
and wind sweetening with the scent of dawn,
stillness is illusion; there is no pause.
Earthquakes wait under every quiet lawn.
Each baby's cry, a claim not a request,
calls milk from any nursing mother's breast.



LULLABY

Sleep little child,
close your eyes.
White birds sift
from summer skies.
Soft rain taps
a tin roof song,
the dark is here
and the night is long.

Sleep little child,
close your eyes.
White birds sift
from summer skies.
It's warm here baby
in your bed,
a fine feather pillow
for your head.

Sleep little child,
close your eyes.
White birds sift
from summer skies.
Tender kisses
one two three,
I'll keep you safely
near to me.

ENDING

I never learned
to say goodbye
and do it well.
You'll find me
in the back room,
up in the oak,
around the corner.
You should know this
if you go.
I can't ever get
the ending right.



RIVER

I say yes to you
as I do to the river
and the rocks
beside the river.
Small birds waking
recall the sound
of river water
sliding over stone,
and the sound
is yes.



MY TRUELOVE'S VOICE

I heard my truelove's voice
on the North wind.
He is hungry
for what only
I can give him.
He has grown lean
in the cold land
far away from me.
He shelters under a juniper
and his shadow
is the shadow of a tree.
He is a fine hunter,
but game is scarce
and snow grows deep.
He will be home soon,
with the taste of winter
on his wild wild lips.
I will wait by the fire
until he can see me,
and the sound he makes then
will be the sound of ice breaking.



WHALE SONG

When whales lived on land,
gentle browsers,
perhaps they were silent
as deer are silent
in the heart of the forest.

They lived at the edge
of the fertile sea.
Pressed, they dove deeper.
Looking down,
they stopped looking back.
Forced, they made
great, dark songs
heard for miles
underwater.

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© Pat Hathaway