Impromptu and with Ease

Impromptu and with Ease

Westminster bells
partition through the air
to orient for place
a pacing in the hours

 and cockcrows wake
to first ordain the dawn
with much the surety
of rows of daffodils
unclenching in the sun

it is a gentle doing

it is not blast ordained
like thunder lightning storm
from heavy-lidded clouds
decreeing lines for rain

oh, let us dance…my love
impromptu and with ease
to relegate our days
in measured roundelay

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork: Vincent van Gogh
“Wheat Fields in Rain” 1889

The Taste of Sea in Salt

 

 

Pacific Ocean swash
leaves hints upon the sand
of its nether world below

discards abyssal remnants
for moon jellyfish dissolve
and blue mussel shell wreck
and blur of flea hazed kelp

erases imprint of a barefoot path
mizzles spray soak to a chill
and dims wave crash to a hiss

between our separate range
there will be no translation
no easy blending to exist

only recognition of circumference
where the taste of sea in salt
is faint as watermark

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artist: John Miller

For Fifteen Abalone

 

My Pacific litters debris upon a windy beach
where I scry for chance of incidental grace
of a foulish lump of black white ambergris
or a bottle message from some far off place.

I watch children plunder tidal pools,
watch them pocket sandy bi-valves…stones
‘till their pockets sag and mothers warn them
to beware of seal-ed test tubes…stray syringes.

Here, I sense no sermons in a Chambered Nautilus
nor a sea polished globe from a trawler’s float,
nor do I find significance in gray twisted wood.

Though, over years I’ve nailed upon my redwood fence
fifteen barnacled and radiant shells of abalone.
Some are cast off from the divers seeking flesh.
Some are ones to which the otters beat them.

Perhaps I augur with a magic fifteen square
or with aquatic hex signs ward off demons;
I think none of this, for they simply please me.

Now, however, I am angry pensive restless
as my best five have overnight gone missing;
I should check the neighbors’ lawns,
post a notice…inspect the market stalls.

Though, I’ll do none of this.  No.
Yet I wonder why I prize sea dregs
And I wonder why I should wonder why at all.

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artist: Derek Bond

 

 

bison rumble

 

oh, their bravado
instinctual…now…
their purple tongues flick
catching cow must…
the older and younger bull
paw one ton challenges
as their white eye craze
infects the herd
warning distance…
let the play out start

then the muscle set
sharp horns shake
rake air then shoulders
broad heads batter low
hips twist…twist…
hooves stab leverage
to center gravity
gain advantage
on the line

they heave acrid breath
and deep wet rumble growls
strength butted… joined
forehead to forehead
for the final roundings
and earth poundings
and the edge of giving
and more giving
and it is over

abrupt…
one canters to prairie hills
one to waiting cows
it was all in the lasting
death was unnecessary

Bonnie Marshall

 

Art by Debbie Doble

 

wilderness in women

 

I’m old…
I can tell you this

women need wilderness
…especially when they’re young

for in wilderness they learn
not to trust old maps;
and they swim in icy streams
if bridges are washed down

in wilderness…
they hear honest sounds,
and know when nestlings
rasp for raw sustaining flesh
they hear healthiness…
not the noise of whining

and on the day they die
women raised in wilderness
sing to themselves…remembered
songs to float with them from
this world to the next

 

Bonnie Marshall

Artwork Balthazar Denner