Poetry Thursday

I live in an area called "The Motherlode" which is rich in California history. The motherlode is a country life full of rivers, lakes and streams. Gold miners struck it rich here.

I read about a book of poetry in the motherlode newsletter that was a compilation of poetry and prose of the motherlode and sierra. I had to have it and finally found a copy yesterday. This one jumped out at me right away.



"I am one of you," the poet called back,
though he was dressed like the wind,
though he looked like
a waterfall."
Mary Oliver

NATURAL DISASTERS

Nobody could figure out what I was
for Halloween.
I wanted to say Poet, though I didn't;
I was a waterfall.

I'm Lying.
I was a tsunami.
Later, I read a poem
saying orgasms were tidal waves-women's.

I just wanted to be a natural disaster.
When I told Daryl about the costume
as we canoed the boundary waters'
rainy lakes, he said:

You weren't a natural disaster; you were a natural process.
He's an ecologist.
His comment flushed me with ire.
Who wants to be a process for Halloween?

My companions dressed as a wildfire and a tornado;
we were a triumvirate;
forces of heat and wind and water
--we were disasters.

As for Daryl: Kissing him was a natural process.
How else could we have canoed together, how else could our storm-
battered bodies have brushed against each other at night;
no forces to hold back the tides?

By Andrea Ross from the book Manzanita.

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