earth descants

 

rice field terraces
shape to hillsides
with tiny blades
in shallow water…
and there lift
earth mounds
of body burial
strewn with
daisies, lilies, iris,
though Emerson
once wrote that flowers
are merely evidence
of earth’s most giddy laughter
*       *        *       *       *

earth spills
from grinding plates…
slides hissing to the sea
spawning islands…
belching ash…
and though I’m awed
I’ll not personify
a raging reason
to its underworld
as if a god
spews temperament
on flecks of flecks of dust
*       *       *       *       *

a Kao-Ling potter wets his fingers
slips white submissive clay…
breathes in its earthy smell of
faint silicates and feldspar
then, eyes closed…experienced,
presses form into the yield

Bonnie Marshall

Art by Don Pentz