TINY BOATS



Veronica told us to come by the bay tonight,
main entrance to Big Tribune Bay, July 16th.
Into silence we walk together from the meadow
in a long line, not so much in sadness,
it is that too, but humbled, as something
greater than ourselves rises and covers us with
the ocean of this warm, terrible love. Rain
pulls down our faces, the tide floods. In our
hands are little gifts. In Veronica's words:
"found objects from nature, votive candles,
rose petals and tiny boats to float out to sea."
Our feet sink into sand, southeaster blows
straight in. Hundreds walk together. I kneel
on the shore and set my boat down, try to push
it out, watch it wobble and sail, back
into my hands again.





From Veronica, Orlando's Mother:

"True hope may never be abandoned,
but we believe that Orlando will not be returning to us."

From Wren:

In telling about the southeaster, rain and flooding tide..

"..so all the gifts that were sent on the water came back to us.
You can put whatever meaning you want on that."


c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

WOMAN IN THE ROOM OF LIGHT

The woman in a room of light
walks to the porch and sits to think about
the earth.

If you are sand, you would not be nothing,
you would be a spark, a piece of the original star,
rounded by the wind, sifted by
tongues of the ocean.

And you would lie under the June sun
stretched out like all of us,
like linen, a sheet of many words,
salty textured,

waiting for the ocean
to come love us again.

“I am sand.” she says.
“One tiny grain from all the beaches
of the world.

And if you think about all of us,
all of the sand on all the beaches
of the world,

what a force we make.”

Together, we are the homecoming,
the beautiful hand the ocean
takes, day after day; we are who
she sings to.

We are the foundation of our mother
the earth, and the transition
from whole to water.

Shells and meteor, gold and glass,
we are the expression of Everlasting.
The tiny bits of batsong, eagle-scream,
hum of midshipman.

We are the bone holders, the phosphorescence,
the wind's knee.

Together, we are what the moon and the sun,
the earth and the heavens once were.
We are the image of love leaving itself,
parting, falling away,

and coming home again.

She picks up her coffee cup, stands
and takes one more long, long look
into the woods, to the far off days,

all those green
and shadowy places.


for Jingles



c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

A Mother on the Beach



The sun feels a little too sharp,
so I stop to let it enter me. The world
begins to slow its frenzied rotation.
My skin is on fire, so I send my eyes
over the roll of wet voices. The ocean
is a mother too. How can I empty her
sad hands? The ocean, I'm told,
holds nothing forever. These are
questions a human asks of mystery.
Spirit world is another place
I've not yet been invited to. My eyes
look for its boundary, for the door
in between the cedars. For the
clasp, the old lock, for the word
that melts hinges. Surely my heart
knows the answer.

I look at my hands, mostly because
my head feels too heavy to hold.
The air is a heavy harp,
I cannot breathe. Why is the room
of grief so empty and why am I alone
here?

My son is as close as the next minute
and I can't figure how to connect
enough lines to map his destination.
I want him here. Oh for one long glimpse
of his skin, or the way he holds his head
when he's smiling. The light I recognize
as only coming from his eyes.

Enough. I beg the distant sky for silence.
For mercy. For anything to make this
unusual pain stop. And the waves
continue to sing so softly
for a moment I think I hear
his voice, feel for a second
something close to peace.





for Veronica-Lynn,
Orlando's mother




c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Crow and the Dump Truck

Crows and ravens. First, let me tell you
about the crow. The raven comes later.
Jeff stops his dump truck in the middle
of the street. The cars had been driving
over the poor bird, flipping and rolling
a bundle of black wings. Traffic behind
the truck waits while the man scoops up
the crow, and stands there, quietly,
looking down at it. Then crow begins
to come back to himself and grips
Jeff's hand like he will never let go.
Jeff puts it by the building,
down in the cool grass. Later,
from work, he comes to check
on the bird who gathers strength.
Jeff, a tall, suntanned country boy,
takes a wheat thin from his lunch bag
and offers it. Crow takes it, and
flies off, each wing beat
a thank you reapeated;

like crows calling,
or water, splashing around rocks,
or ripples of something
that feels so good
it echoes.





for Jeff and the crow



c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Orlando

The island looks smaller from the air.
Sheets of blue opening their arms
around the rock and sand hem,

like an old woman
left by her fisherman lover
in the innocent days,
now rising from a blue nest,

an island of her own heart.

The forest is reverently hushed,
pointing to the next life
and eagles nest in her hair.

You walk to the cove in your dark
boots looking at the sand like
a book, reading its indentations.

The breeze lifts the ends of your hair,
plays a little while you think.

Orlando could be anywhere.

You try to silence the sound of your
heart, and his mother. She is everywhere
even if she isn't with you.

The weight of the stone
within her is unbearable.
You listen again.

You finger the sand,
and the foot prints
and the places of no foot prints,
reading each word of no letters.

You listen to the wind, your grandfather,
who steadily hums. His words
are vibrations we measure
inside our heads.

You look to the tall sky disappearing
into the hands of a black night.

We try to light what we cannot see
and some cry. It is easier to wait
with a mission in your breast
and your feet falling one
in front of the other,

than in the camp of mothers.

You would hope Orlando's mother
was out too, in a boat or
inside the bird searching.

The waves came to shore this morning
with empty hands.

The breeze lifts a few thin limbs,
leaves use sign language.

You close your eyes, stand facing the sun.
The red kayak will open its secrets.

Listen,
listen to even that which is silent,
it talks too.





for Orlando and his family
and the Hornby Island search effort

c2011 TLStokes (all rights reserved)

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Intense+search+underway+missing+teen+Hornby+Island/5036260/story.html

Missing the Boat

MISSING THE BOAT



First in line at the ferry terminal
the only car in the wide gray parking lot.
I write by the windows while you buy
a scone.

We end one journey beginning another.
Like life and death, exciting,
sad and glorious.

My hair is full of eagle feathers,
your arms look like wings.

Our heads are slowly turning
white and the wind
has become something different.

Who knows whose ancestor
travels back to me. Whose message
is typed across a black wing?

Surely the Grandmothers
will of these verses
teach us to read.


for Idaho, with gratitude



c2011 TLStokes (all rights reserved)

Salmon Song

Salmon Song



We look through layers
of old arms. The dripping green
and flat flowers, fiber of sleep,
petals of collected ultraviolet.

Some call it forest.

To us it has no name.
We feel it, borrowing the chipped
and snapped off offering,
its broken separating piles of names,
heart in pieces, spark of seed.

All through these colors
flows the chant of salmon.
And beyond this, their messages
of river-bended light,
and ocean's mouth
reciting the blood call.

Ancient offspring.
Just as I begin to tell you
my perch's history, all of it
changes.

The tree begins to stretch upward,
like an old man unraveling his bones
and holding his flesh high overhead
he becomes something like sky
barked over and burning.
His blood is a river,
black and fragrant.

He turns slowly to our
glowing eyes.

Come sit a while with me,
he says. And learn.
Cast your eyes like eagles.
Watch how everything
constantly changes.

There is no word for this.
Stop. Shhhh. Listen.

So still is the light of all things.
So quiet yet thunderous living.

Here comes the wet and glorious
voice of storm. Tuck under this wide
curved wall and we will watch together.
The woods come down,
the river is a sky.

Sleep if you must.
My breast continues
the drum beat you
have always known.

Steady.
Filling you, the forest,
the wet black river of

salmon song within you.






for Ostrich



c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

eagles and the ghosts

On the high woven palace
royalty sleeps. Sun
fiddles and opens the sky.

Alexandra rises on her small legs
leaning on the breast
of her mother.

David tucks his wings
into a feathery broom.

Warmth from the burning heart
of their nest wells up
like water.

Below and around in the voicelessness,
in the lower spectrum
growing still
we gather,

ghosts on limbs and cloud formations,
chatting about the weather,
the next low tide,

if what the fisherman caught
is a rat fish or greenling.

If crow will catch another midshipmen
for the eagle to steal.

Who's coming for mother's day.

In boxes far inland and across whale fields
more ghosts gather. Some sit, some sleep.
Watchers and guardians learning the songs
of hunger, of love,

of warning.

Something falls down. As one, they all turn
toward the crying.

They huddle and use the skills
they learned from raptors: when cold, cover,
when hungry, feed as soon as you can.

When tired, surround and rock to sleep.
Patient they wait, ghosts
know these things.

Be still. There are no right words
so they are quiet. They hand out gifts
of their experience that don't look like
anything.

But you feel it. It begins to come to you
like something remembered. The pause,
the place where you can stop

and rest in the night after the day
of all that is happening. And rest before
night comes again.

Balanced, on the axis, we dangle together
mingling, bumping into each other,
loving the ocean of our existence.

Vunerable yet wise.
Learning that even if the light is out,
and the room feels empty,

even if the one who lies so still upon
the floor, leaking life,

seems gone,

what you loved
and felt of the physical being
of their life,

is still within your arms,
against your chest,
warm in the invisible light
of the spirit world.

To the room with the orange couch
bring the bird of your heart.
Take the drink of our friendship,
serve us your tears.

Even the eagles are here on our shoulders
and nothing is too heavy

that this love
cannot carry.






for Gallatin

c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)

Alexandra and the Ancients

Who am I an empty room
of abalone caverns,
collecting thoughts like birds.

Empty handed,
waiting breathless
for the poem
to arrive.

Who am I iridescent, flying light,
reflected shapes, black depths,
finned and wrapped in fluid armor,

spellbound instinct
telling me to crash
between ocean
and the river?

Dark wanderer, sustainer
of a forest, torn into succulent bits
I become feathers,
a sea monster child,
all things,
watch me.

Who am I in the heights
of praying arms and sky,
downy-crowned, round belly,
open mouthed?

Child of the king and queen
of heaven,
promise of a grandmother.

Small teakettle,
fuzzy puddle,
eagle's daughter.

Who am I braided gray
salt water scented
woman of notes and thinking

pondering the deep, the red
and silver messengers,
and giants singing us to sleep?

Curious teacher,
passion-fed observer of detail,
our wind-clothed
learned mother.

Who am I young, innocent learner,
the reader, one who comes
behind to carry on your flame?

Child of fire and vision,
dressed inconspicuous
and plain.

Who am I secret ones,
the hidden feathers,
racing swimmers,
soaring brilliant sun-catchers,

babies not yet born.

Who am I sleeping womb,
attentive mother, cradle
of sweet damp land.

Strong elemental magnet,
stone,
patient globe,
watery blue.

Who am I thirst-relieving cup
once overflowing, now trickles,
sand and tear.

Forgotten riverbed,
empty nest of ancients,
footprint of fingerling.

Who am I spider words creeping
across the page.

Sad linger,
dreamer of what was
and is.
Long wander.

Who am I namer of eaglets,
farmer, man who guards
the ancients.

Patient season,
accountant,
counter of fish
and fledged.

Who am I distant writer.

Rain catcher,
curious,
dreamer.

Who am I voice over the trees
reminding you of yourself,
and the pieces we thought lost
or broken,

are here
and simply

intricately connected.






in honor of the work
of Alexandra Morton,

and the eaglet
who shares the same name.



c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)