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Emily Strauss


The History of Water

you wouldn't know, observing dry gravels
tumbled down the slope of the alluvial plain
that once a great flood filled the canyon
 
and boulders clashed like gods' nine-pins,
the sky dark, angry water fought the cliffs
dug the channel deep, frothed and slashed
 
tree trunks stripped, gasping mice scrambled
on flowing mud, and now— I am calm now,
sane, walking fast at noon under a cloudless
 
sky, cholla spines scattered— you would
never know looking at me here on this round
rock, hands still, watching a short-horned lizard
 
perched on the hot granite which can't imagine
summer monsoons, that I can tell you the feel
of wet earth. You wouldn't know if I told you
 
how I swam downstream once, holding a branch
of tamarisk, lodged in the channel not breathing,
then turned over to walk away slowly, to tell you
 
of resurrection, redemption, of living on dry land. 
​

June Third, 1889

“...demonstrations that shook the Communist Party and ended with soldiers sweeping through the city on June 4, shooting dead hundreds of unarmed protesters and bystanders.” (New York Times, June 3. 2013)

It was never meant to happen--
a day stolen from time
an unrecorded, unspoken day
when two lovers disappeared--
a mountain resort on a mirror lake
on a summer evening, clouds dark
at the horizon, cold but hidden inside
the lovers were hot.
 
In the anonymous hotel room
the bed was full of sweat, sex
and room service champagne,
the TV on but they’re not watching
busy in each other’s legs.
At last exhausted they slept,
the news broadcasting softly
in the background until morning
over tea and toast.
 
Suddenly an image appears
their hands freeze, a mouthful
of boiled egg, draw the sheet up
the announcer urgent, anguished
an empty square shows, tanks
and a single man in a white shirt
standing in front, moving as it moves--
a silent picture. Then the screen
went black, they waited
looking at each other over the toast.
 
Later they drove away in different
directions, the TV back to normal
the soldiers gone but the news filled
with how the satellite feed was cut
at that crucial instant. Nothing at all
about a lone man confronting a tank. 
​

Sitting Zazen

Uphill past the bison grazing
on the grasses of early spring
up the steep track blazed
by deer and elk to the top
 
a flat crest looking down
on a thin muddy creek
and naked badland ridges
yellow patches of fossil dirt
 
he climbed fast in the dawn
mist, his breath visible
in the cold shadows
laid out a pad, began
 
stretching in slow delicate
moves before he sat facing
east, back straight, eyes
closed to enter the silent
 
day alone, a tiny figure
motionless for an hour
I watched with binoculars
waiting for a reprieve.
​

Silent Gaps

out here there is no music
to distract from those tiny
spaces between a sense-object
and its mental response
 
only the whine of insects,
rustle of wrens in thick shrubs
the high-pitched hum of the world
spinning
 
the hollow silence, negative pull
of words left unsaid,
the air draining away
empties the body.
 
I sit alone on a cliff, no
grace notes out here
only empty light, the wind
slightly grazing my head
 
earth tones too subdued
for any song, holding still,
the voices long gone, only
the gaps in my head remain.
​

Woolen Covers

Snow will soon fill the gaps
between the smooth poplar trunks
and the double apartment block
entrances fortified by coal-stoked
desiccating heat.
It will gather on pressed clean-swept 
dirt, with rusty leaves 
piled in rotting baskets, 
the street sweeper knocking down 
the last few golden cobwebs 
with a bamboo pole.
It will cover garlic stalks and mounds 
of cabbages under fresh straw wraps
to be dug out later, brushed and sliced 
for dinner, a recollection of olden days
and winter famines.
The spaces between the walkways
will rise in white hillocks, soft drifts 
blowing across school girls’ black boots, 
the snow will line the scraped streets
turning to smoke-gray slush 
and we’ll leap aside when the buses pass, 
ice swirling in the puddles.
It’s time now to gather woolen quilts. 
​

Picture


​Emily Strauss' profile
Go to page 2 of Emily Strauss' poetry

Dripping Water

a thousand feet of ravine
so steep the road insinuates
itself back and forth climbing

the dry ground a tangle
of overgrown brush, wild
peas, pines, half-dead oaks

the stream long dried
it flows only in the wettest
years, a few hours at most

the land parched despite
the daily fogs that rise,
and birds— quail, jays

juncos must forage beside
rabbits and squirrels for 
water to sustain them--

how in this wide vista
they know the one tiny drip
of a broken garden hose

and land one by one to sip
carefully from this small leak--
my silent form immaterial.
​

Dear Reader

If I could tie the world up in strings
make a manageable bundle
that you can carry neatly
in your pocket
with its name on the label
so you can identify yourself
 
then I will have solved your problem
and I can let the words go again
to tumble around the bottom of the jar
like swill in a dank hold and you,
dear reader, can afford to
ignore them--
 
the words I have hoarded so long
will wash out to sea with the tide
leaving you untouched and dry
as you watch the dregs run past
your feet without understanding.
​

Thinking Without Words

Then, we could know the river's edge,
wet sand sucking the zebras' hooves
or icy slopes where near-sapiens
climbed and fell and were buried.
 
Those we could feel wordless, but the rest
would have been nearly impossible
to intuit in the mind without language,
how to explain an approaching vision
 
of winter approaching, salmon pushing
upstream to spawn, caribou massing
on grassy plains flowing south,
dark clouds appearing at daybreak--
 
we may touch fingers to cheeks
feel them pressed into a palm, but
a signifier must follow or we remain
dumb, deer touching noses, flicking tails.
​

Magenta Curves  ☊

How do we write about the silence 
that falls after we stop 
following a road, and instead watch 
the sunset wash over cold mountain 
defiles where snow clings 
on the dry rocky cliffs 
above a desert basin, 
a sinuous curve of magenta?

There are no words 
in the collected shadows
the rising blackness 
covers our thoughts— 
we can't write of ghosts 
in a journal of invisible pages.

Instead we sleep with the stars
in nights winter-cracked
lie huddled on stiff grasses 
and bare earth long enough 
to feel the absence of dreams.

Morning Writing

The ideas play around the edge
like dreams partly remembered
a pressure coming suddenly
words flicker on the page

I write fast before they burn up
like starting a flame from dry
birch bark on smoldering coals
late at night, the red glow faint

at first, I add more words, kindling
to stoke the blaze before I sink back 
into three smoky blankets

the dream-memory receding
with the full moon blue
on the spruce outside my window 

my notebook open, vision blurred 
but still I write fitfully
trying to harness the silence, listening 
for dawn to call me back.

Harvesting Herbs

the thyme and oregano have overgrown
and must be cut & dried in the mud room--
it's time now to process the dried leaves

and I remember the only job my ex-
husband was useful for: he always
prepared our weed for smoking--

carefully removing the stems, saving
the seeds, cutting finely, evenly until
it rolled up nice and tight--

now I have to take over, but it's only
oregano and thyme and I'll keep 
the seeds, though the stems still go

cut not too fine and stuffed into empty 
spice jars labeled “fine herbs” --
they don't even smell the same
​

Go to page 2 of Emily Strauss' poetry

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