Issue 13
Winter 2003
Anne Fraser
lives in Seattle Washington with her husband, son and one orange cat. Anne graduated from Central Washington University and has worked in a law firm for the past 15 years. Her poetry has been published on the internet and in the small press, most recently in PW Review issue 11, Lingerings and A Little Poetry; Anne's work will also appear shortly in the on-line journal Prairie Poetry.
The Art & Poetry of Anne Fraser
Held Steady
Bound corn sits rigid and quiet in fields,
feigning indifference to confinement.
Under shelter, a black crow peers outward
awaiting flight at the end of rain.
___________________________
We stand with the years composing autumn, eyes
stretched across fields and time, trying to memorize
the shape and feel of all that went before. Most dreams
have changed shape to fall away, innards to ashes -
our small histories set in layers of soap, old
wood and earth embedded beneath uneven nails.
By sun and fire we tend the things we must,
to soothe and keep life's insistencies,
working bits of time into braided bands held
between the fingers of each hand. With no pattern,
we work fingerprints deep into a single plaiting.
Children and the Thing About Snow
Snowflakes drift slowly downward
from high invisible places. You must
open your mouth wide toward heaven
to catch one on your tongue, to hold
the taste and form against the soft
lining of your mouth for just a moment
before you set it free.
But the wondrous thing dissolves
in a heat you cannot help but have.
In the instant you were just beginning
to have the sensation of how the
soft and lacy cold would feel, the "almost feeling"
has lost its grip and becomes a hiccup of
no feeling at all.
Later, she will wonder if magic and the place
of make believe are what remains of possible
beginnings and things that changed before there
was a chance to be, and if snowflakes are cold
symmetries that slipped from one possibility
and one moment, falling just before the
opening of the next reality.
Simplicity
Sweeping watercolor skies,
footprints and shadows,
white haired dandelions,
notion and discovery.
Ice unseen within glass,
small pieces of time carved into
strings and other useful shapes,
the spaces around "if".
Light enters me, entering it,
the feel of untangled winds,
sunbeam through a prism
separated back into simplicity.