Crater Lake, 1923 I stood before the lake one summer day minerals fell silent fragments all at once the souls of children rose up together headed west over the valley surrender not grief nothing rippled the lake’s surface An Oasis in the Badlands, 1905 This land has not saved us. My horse drinks here for the last time. Winter will come, unaware of how I leaned back in the saddle as my animal filled herself, the river emptying under her hooves; loss wears away to black and white soft like ashes after a prairie fire. Canyon de Chelly, 1904 The distance divides itself and becomes greater, a covert equation. Our horses raise their heads, alert to barometric change. We look up from the sandy floor to the top of an island. What logic put an ocean here and then took it away gallon by salty gallon? The Rush Gatherer, 1910 All day I go about my work groping through mud and living things. People think the hardest part is bundling thick wet grass, but it’s watching my hands disappear into that dark water again and again. The Vanishing Race, 1904 When you finally saw us you gave us names intended to destroy. We are going not because we are doomed but because you are. You have facts and we have facts. How differently the truth accords itself. We know how to address the mountain. No towns will come here and roads will dwindle to one. No one else wanted this land: we, its reluctant caretakers, ride the horses you brought us straight into the cliff. Erica Goss Four of these poems were first published as a sequence by Ekphrasis. Erica Goss served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA from 2013-2016. She is the author of Night Court, winner of the 2016 Lyrebird Award, Wild Place and Vibrant Words: Ideas and Inspirations for Poets. Recent work appears in Lake Effect, Atticus Review, Contrary, Convergence, Spillway, Eclectica, The Tishman Review, Tinderbox, The Red Wheelbarrow, and Main Street Rag, among others. She is editor of Sticks & Stones, a bi-monthly poetry newsletter. Please visit her at www.ericagoss.com.
1 Comment
Caroline Lindley
8/20/2018 04:09:21 pm
Erica,
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