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CAIRN

Legs out-stretched, I sit under a live oak
on dry ground. Black ants explore
the creases in my jeans. In my lap
heaps of red and gold-dried cranberries
and Sultana raisins explode their sweetness
in my mouth. I gaze over high desert
to plateau's sharp edge where
in waves of heat the breath of the valley
shimmers. Inches from drop-off
the cairn rises in tiers of balanced rock.
Leaning against its shoulder, piled
with care on the narrow top, huddled
around the base lie small treasures:
foot-long sugar pine cones, handfuls of acorns,
a sprinkle of silver, sharp stones, and one
long strand of glittery glass beads.
Through the seasons, the cairn stands, through
the rush of wind, the brush of bear,
its base anchored in earth,
upward path of spirit rising.

Published in Poetry Depth Quarterly, October 2001

ORANGE RIBBONS: September 12, 2001

Kids in the Dunsmuir High School cafeteria
spend lunch hour, home room time
with scissors, tiny gold pins and yards
of narrow orange satin ribbon.
When the simple loops
pile up like tangerines
in a tropical marketplace
they take handfuls, stuff pockets,
fill a pretty basket, head into town.
Before the sun sinks behind cedars
and hemlocks bow their drooping heads
and the September horror ends
its second day, every person
in the small mountain town-
just-born infant to war-torn graybeard-
wears the symbol. After orange flames
burst through those twin towers and
blasted thousands of lives
apart,
the orange ribbons tie a town
together.

Published in OutStretch Magazine September 2001

COLD TIMES AHEAD

Anemones nod simple white petals
over a rail fence grown silver through the years.
The cats race and leap in the chill October morning.
Her hand writing on the fresh page
fumbles, stiff from arthritis and fall-bitten air.

Fish dimple the creek, low from summer irrigation.
Like panels in a Japanese screen
five egrets search for breakfast-stylized,
beak extended, leg crooked. A sudden noise
tosses them skyward. On the sycamore's half-dead branch
acorn woodpeckers fill holes in regimental rows.

Lined in stripes on a small white plate,
the fruit his large hands arranged: blue-black
prunes, small squares of honeydew
melting in pale green, creamy banana circles,
raspberries fragrant in red juice.
Fuel for the hand warming to its task.

Published in Tiger's Eye, Fall/Winter 2002

© All Copyright, Patricia Wellingham-Jones.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.