The poem “VIII. ‘a conception of the ideal life’ is from an epistolary collaboration with the poet Sheila Farr. Text in quotes is from Isadora Duncan, and italicized text is from Gertrude Stein.
Dear Sheila,
Creeping days, awaiting mail-order seeds.
The green of new weeds masks my bare dirt.
What do we plant? What, in us, is planted?
When younger, I thought I was the willow,
and come to find I am the birch,
a different weeping, a dance more fragile—
wanting to sway like that tree across the alley.
Its gentle flourish, its terrible vulnerabilities,
as when part of one branch drops….
By the creek where I walked stood a snag,
its two arms reaching up to praise the sky
like the one expressing that dancing is existing.
Yearly, the limbs grew shorter,
pieces missing, sign of the bronze birch borer.
An echo of gesture left in the emptied space.
I’m not saying there are weeds in my body,
although maybe there are, or some pest,
some past that worries, what I might
have missed—and all we’re missing.
This year my world reduced to a yard, windows.
Creeping time, and through the walls,
I hear a mechanical mouth.
Next door, they are taking down their birch.
A man lashed high up on the trunk
saws the tree, teeth and dust, the muse
of leaves shimmering in wind surrendered
for wind through plain air.
From the country of my address,
Joannie
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 20, Issue 2.
Joannie Stangeland is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently The Scene You See. Her poems have also appeared in The MacGuffin, North Dakota Quarterly, New England Review, and other journals.
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