September 3, 2006
THE FEET
1
All day
her feet tied in leather
steam in their juice.
Tender and spongy,
by night
her feet ache with her heart
and lungs.
2
A poultice of garlic
and balm
on her soles:
in the morning she will taste
garlic on her breath.
3
In her slumber
she does not see her child
floating
near the ceiling,
whose hair shines
because today her feet
breathed
against the camomile flowering
over the mold and bones
of her father.
4
If her hands
rubbing her mother’s feet
slacken
the cords lately gone stiff
through the neck,
then, lovers, place your soles
together as often
as your mouths
for their subtle mist
allows all our angels to shine
and fly.
5
In the hot bath
her calves let go of her ankles
and feet, their pores
open and her mind floats.
* * *
TUMBLE SONG
When your tears and body
are dried and you are nothing
more than you are now—
a turning, a spinning
—When you are a ball of sticks . . .
I shall be wind, as I am
now, nothing
but a whirling, still rushing
with your rolling, bouncing bones
over the endless flat.
* * *
TO JANE IN SUNLIGHT
WITH HER DAUGHTER EVE
I see Eve in your quiet eyes
reflect as you sigh and look to
your breathing breast. Its fall and rise
excite Eve’s cadenced suckling cries
and they, your living smile. In you
I see Eve, in your quiet eyes
casting a mother’s prophecies
—prayers for the first who draws through
your breathing breast. Its fall and rise
rock Eve quickly to sleep who lies
breathing with her first mother—you.
I see Eve in your quiet eyes.
Did the coming dusk shade her sighs
as our mother smiled looking to
her breathing breast? Its fall and rise
fell with dawn to darkening skies
—each breath counted time for life new.
I see Eve in your quiet eyes,
your breathing breast, its fall and rise.
* * *
Dick Bakken of Bisbee, Arizona, did a 20-event new book reading tour of the West in 2003 to promote Twin Towers (Carrington Press, 2003), his response to the September 11th World Trade Center attacks, then another 20-event new book tour of the West in 2004 to promote Dick Bakken: Greatest Hits (Pudding House Publications, 2005), which features his 12 most influential poems 1967-2002. In January 2006, he read poetry for ArtForms at Mastery in Life Center in Las Cruces. That same month, he lead his Persona Piñata writing workshop at Clinica La Fe Center for Culture & Technology and read poetry at Pike Street Market, both for Tumblewords Project in El Paso. He was interviewed by Belinda Subramin while reading poetry on her BZOO streaming radio Gypsy Art Show. Dick Bakken: Greatest Hits (Pudding House Publications, 2005) is available for $10 signed and postpaid from dickbakken@yahoo.com. Tumble Song was previously published in "Central Avenue" an Albuquerque publication in 2005.
* * *
Newspaper Tree is pleased to consider submissions of poetry for publication in upcoming issues. Please submit up to five poems of no more than two pages, along with a biographical note of no more than 30 words, to Donna Snyder, Poetry Curator, c/o publisher@newspapertree.com