A Bit of Earth
by Hilary Sallick
Into this light I come
nearer not yet
(what was I dreaming)
water from the tap the world
through the pane
I want to know
the shape of it
through which my life
flows
…
This last day of September
is warm and finally
it rained last night
I was wakeful that wind
knocking things over outside
blowing through the windows
the loud roaring all around
Was a danger
on its way? I could have slept
cradled in the rushing
if not for the fact of disaster —
hurricane drought. torrential fire
elsewhere and real
A leaf falls gliding down
I move in these circles
sending love to many
How does one do that?
Sun appears at an edge yellow
through trees and more light now
on other sides
clouds must be
parting high up a curtain
drawing open to make these
rays and angles
on the wet drooping leaves
They nod to me as if
saying something I can’t quite
hear what is it who are you
in the leaves
…
Imagine a room
with a table of paints and
brushes space to walk
in circles to dance!
maybe one long wall
for drafts of poems
(they say Elizabeth Bishop kept hers
pinned up for years
awaiting completion)
My wall would hold lines and
painted scrawls
In fact I like to walk into my real kitchen
and find my paintings here
on the windowsill
With rough strokes I made
those portraits of my daughter
as I sat across from her
She’s far away now
…
pearly air nothing moving
chill softness
sparrow chortle
leaf falling
greens bluing
moisture restored
this rain we’ve had
inner outer hot water
write to Eleanor
it’s her birthday
what bird is that?
so familiar
calling far off
…
I hear a wren
Leaves the color of peaches
are scattered across the yard
In my dream I was sending
a report via a screen:
what I was learning experience
sleep sadness
Was there more to say? Yes
but I didn’t want to impose
on the reader
Before getting up I lay in bed looking
out the window at treetops then
from the other side of the room
the sun itself rose bright
into view and I thought of my own
patch of earth
myself a bit of earth
turning toward that body
of light
Hilary Sallick is the author of two full-length collections, Love Is A Shore (forthcoming from Lily Poetry Review Books) and Asking the Form (Cervena Barva Press, 2020). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Notre Dame Review, Small Orange Journal, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Inflectionist Review, Empty House Press, Ibbetson Street, and other journals. She teaches reading and writing to adult learners in Somerville, MA, and is vice president of the New England Poetry Club.
