Shannon P. Laws
Lining of My MindThe future comes to me
quickly Premonition stands outside the window, framed to be seen, stands politely ‘til the door opens the right door at the right time Tea or coffee? A blanket for your lap? It’s cold outside where time weathers as a pacific swirl over the peninsula hooked on peaks cold. still. It rains in my house. The fire is out. Wet paper see-throughs to wooden table. Drips creep across the low areas, finds them all --both the dark and the hidden. I’m swept up into this ungraspable moment Future comes to visit. Somewhere close by another turns the channel, a person adds soap to the wash, a cat sighs in the window-- all in silent exclamation. What we desire more than seasons or weather is the comfort of being a stranger, more so with ourselves. It is better not to know. So I wait. Wait for something that vanishes as soon as it arrives. It’s appearance not unlike mowed lawn --the stalk of the dandelion snapped. It’s there. We know it. Whether we walk on it or not. The merciless motor hums in the distance and every so often a breeze from the south carries the leaky-green odor of grass. Lady Takes a BathThe answer to my question rests in the tone of my cat giving herself a bath. Sandpaper tongue smooths out the rough edges of her frame. Saliva holds down the rebel cow-licks. Lying in sunbeams of the living room, atop the paisley cushion on the file cabinet, this is her space.
Loudly she processes every section. I hear her over my reading. Today she investigates those piles of apples on the lawn, is startled by the next two plopping into wild grass tuffs. The path of the speckled moth is discovered leading to the Black-Eyed Susan, blooms frozen by overnight frost, crinkled and breaking, in the next door yard. Bees still bounce on the lavender row by the driveway. The lady takes a dust bath to the tune of hums collecting last of the season’s nectar. Now, it’s early evening. She stretches out fully on the braided kitchen rug ready for sleep. Anything ElseIt flakes off my shoulder when I bend down
Black trails my movement Dark spots in the corner of my eye let me know it’s still there A reminder of the charcoal thread that ties me to my past whisps of whispers from that one night long ago The hurt bleeds out over the decades dribbles into a bucket deeper than my lifetime will hold A pain oozes out of me weeps down the bark of me black like sap |
The RiddleI am a net
tossed into the sea. Weights in the corner drag me down. One hard jerk secures the catch. Winch and pulley draw me back. Wet and heavy with dinner and debris If I could be used for something different Tablecloth Rug Curtains A net to hold fruit, a wall hanging, broken apart, unraveled, re-knitted into a sweater But I am a fish net thrown out to the storm my value-- is caught between spaces. Voice on the Trail ~Then I saw what the calling was: it was the road I traveled,
the clear time and these colors of orchards, gold behind gold and the full shadow behind each tree and behind each slope. ~Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) All the voices of the Wood called “Shannon!” But it was soon solved; it is nothing, it is not my real name. My real name is written on a stone kept warm by eternal embers I am still too cold to hold. Words like “Real” and “Endure” Sound like “Health” and “Hell” Then I see what is calling, it was the road I traveled, miles behind, warning me of the FORK The sound bounces forward, then back, right-side-down warns of mud ahead―not to me, but to anyone. And at last I saw where the road lies wide, and clear orchard rows, easy fruit and bundled grass roll along a tan, green and blue landscape. Not for me. Not for me. Not for me. I came into my clear being uncalled, alive, and sure of all but what I see. Nothing speaking to me, none know my real name― not the owl, the fish or the elk, but I offer myself to the strangers and all is well Strangers we all are. I know them well.
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