The Song of Clay, by Mary Kay Rummel

Ningirsu, carvings excavated in ancient Sumer (modern day Iraq, Turkey), approx. 2500 to 2900 B.C.E.

The Song of Clay
                            Ankara Turkey


In the Archaeological Museum I study
a clay tablet carved in Sumerian
for Ningirsu, god of fertility.

Soft etches, lift of riverbed
where the waters shone
on this piece of earth.
The scribe must have paused
between lines to contemplate
cedar branches brushing blue sky.
Conifer became part of the carving.
Dusky wings of bats careened
from branch to branch.
Wind sighed the sound of clay
shaped to carry a human voice.


Maybe it says
    
The phosphorescent float of sky
              we hold between us
              touches the undersides of trees.


Maybe it says
    
              We become a riverbank
              where night animals bend
              to ease their thirst.


Tonight will bring us luminous travel,
Holy oil lighting every tree
above this terra cotta
above us as we sleep.

Mary Kay Rummel

Mary Kay Rummel was the first Poet Laureate of Ventura County, California from 2014-16. Her seventh book of poetry, The Lifeline Trembles, is winner of the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Prize. What’s Left Is The Singing was also published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco in 2010. She has poems in new issues of Miramar, Pirene’s Fountain, and Nimrod and was a Laureate’s Choice winner in the 2016 Maria Faust sonnet contest at the Great River Shakespeare Festival. Born in St. Paul, loving the Pacific, she teaches part time at California State University, Channel Islands and divides her time between Ventura and Minneapolis.   marykayrummel.com