New Poetry by Emily Strauss

I.

Spiritual Geography

People always say, I love the smell

Of rain, but all I smell is dirt as if

The sky is washing itself and what

Pours off the dusty ceiling is dirty

Brown water we see as rain, reeking

Like car washes or beaten rugs

Dripping muddy rinse water down

The street, Persian carpets

Lying out soaking wet with soap

Flakes and the woman squatting

Her chador gathered between her legs

Scraping the surface with a bowl

And the passing cars driving over.

This is the dry California rain

Disturbing the dust only rarely

Bouncing off dried oak leaves

Down smooth madrone bark

The earth washing all its facets

Into my nose, pungent before

The sky dries again and dirt

Returns to its normal lifeless

State.


II.

Waiting for Words to Come

While I wait for the words to come

I exercise my fingers by digging into

Rock, guiding sticks that float down

The stream, stroking flower petals, feeling

Their moist softness as if velvet came

Alive and gathered morning dew.

While I wait, I notice the wren under

The bush hopping among the dense

Foliage, the spider web arching

Over the stream at dusk, the peaks

Turning pink. Now I am ready.

I will try my hand at sorting pebbles

At the bottom of the rapids, parting

Branches at the creek, I will become

Warm to the air shuffling the leaves

Until they tremble and the deer tracks

In the damp earth, the bird calls and

Night crickets.

Then I will begin to write.

III.

When spring runs feral

obsidian nights crack

over the plains leaving

sharp splinters stuck

in the old moon dory.

The sky breaks on the points

of black shards while cottony

fog waits far out among silent

Swells with the trade winds.

The land is articulate

in the intervals of time

that includes every moment

Space is an arena of smells

Signaling desire without end,

Emotional reticence is lost

Amidst bay, heather,lavender

And we can’t see that the mind

Is infinite, or breath limited only

By the perfume of gardenias

Orange blossoms, and jasmine

As spring taunts us with incomplete

Couplings and summer is almost

Born.

- Emily Strauss 2012

Emily is a retired English teacher from California, and often focus on the natural world that she encounters and how it reflects her own emotional interior. Emily has over two dozen pieces published here and there online including Poetry Unlocked, Every Day Poets, and the South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal.