The University of Tennessee at Martin, College of Humanities and Fine Arts
Department of English Writing Awards, 2007-2008
The Robert G. Cowser Poetry Award
POEMS
Emily Kendall
© Emily Kendall, 2008
All Rights Reserved—Reprinted By Permission
CHILDHOOD:
three tanka
- 1 -
The scrubby woods
loom like a dark forest.
Dirt cowpaths lead
to enchantment and adventure.
I am the hero of every story.
- 2 -
The trees at night
reaching pale branches
like twisted hands
are ghosts of dead women.
I pity their mute sorrow.
- 3 -
Beneath the earth
a giant woman lies sleeping
in curves and hills.
I fear her waking, the day
she shakes off the world and walks.
JANUARY
Pale sky shines between bare limbs
outside my window,
glances off the brown and frozen ground.
Wrapped up in boneache cold
the hills’ eroded curves
the naked trees
the old white farmhouse
huddle to the earth.
A burst of rowdy noise—four boys
bundled in makeshift camouflage
scramble into the landscape.
Their eyes are bright, their noses red.
Their bouncing laughter shatters the stillness.
Single file, they dogtrot down a hill and disappear,
intent on some vital military mission.
Their voices linger, captive,
ringing a moment still
in the clean winter sky.
WINTER NIGHT
Over the field the night sky curves
dark blue and brilliant with winter stars,
smudged at the edge with orange window glow
and the brittle black lace of naked trees.
I follow the crunch of gravel on the path
beneath my feet: crunch past the porchsteps,
past the stark bonewhite stripe
the porchlight cuts out of the night.
On either side of that island of light
the land lies quiet, hiding.
The cold rises up from inside the silent earth,
wraps itself with fierce love around the invisible hills,
sinks its needle teeth into my bare fingers,
weaves spiderwebs of cold between my bones.
The keen cold captures each small sound,
offers it up, distinct and jewelbright:
the down highway rushing roar of cars
(their headlights like marshlights eerie in the night).
The dry snap of a twig in the woods
a small frantic rustling through underbrush
the dogs' hollow baying howl.
And walking out into the night
the crisp crunch of the gravel path
beneath my feet.
SUMMER NIGHT
I love the way blackness lies on the hills
and close upon the grass in the low places.
It covers the damp grass and the rotting twigs—
crushed beneath its heavy soft embrace they grow fragrant.
The night pours blackness into the hollows—
the spaces daylight made empty—
pours them full of blackness.
Now when I cannot see them they take shape,
can be smelled and felt and tasted.
Here is no keen light, no cruel light
here no sun glares down pitiless
here there are no longer faults—
what was bent and crooked
here has no shame. Nameless, it becomes
another roundness to be encountered.
Here in the night I throw away my eyes—
they land with a quiet thump
and heavy with their judgments roll into
some anonymous vermin hole.
Now, here, to my blind fingers
what seemed at noon like flaws
are hills and hollows underneath my heavy hand—
are fragrant with the scent of damp things
are rich with secrets which I do not learn
and which unlearned I love
in the dark night.
AFTER RAIN
It rained this morning—now
its tears all cried away
the stormy sky has faded
into gray
And poured into the air
the silent still
that follows weeping, when one
has wept one’s fill.
Along the spattered sidewalk
stand the trees,
their limbs black with drunk raindrops.
A small wind breathes
among their branches.
Heavy with wet
they do not sway
but droop gently to the pavement,
dripping spots of gray—
The rain damp branches,
all the rain damp limbs
breathe out a quiet fragrance
through their skins—
A fragrance like a forest—
elusive, hardly breathed—
like wild roots deep drinking--
As if the trees, too, dreamed—
LONG DISTANCE
One foot, and then the other—God!
I’m no good at this, no
long distance
runner.
I know pain waits ahead—know I’ll fall,
stumble on sin again and
again, tasting
dust.
If I could see the end—but it’s the
middle of the day, a long
long way until
the end.
THROUGH THE VEIL
Hebrews 10:19-20
habentes fratres fiduciam
On communion sunday the church is decorated in monochrome: white flowers in the vases, white hangings on the walls, a white tablecloth draped over the dishes waiting on the altar—
in introitu sanctorum
against the snowy purity of the sanctuary the preacher stands in his black robes like a carrion crow. He spreads his arms like a dark-winged bird, blessing, supplicating, incanting the familiar verses of sacrifice and substitution:
in sanguine Christi
his words conjure up images vivid in their cruelty—they stain the white draped sanctuary with streaks of coalblack and vermilion. The vague floral scent of airfreshener disappears under the tangy, dirty reek of blood and sweat.
quam initiavit nobis per velamen
This is beauty: the invisible God wearing flesh like any man’s, making pain his bread and his wine sorrow. What is so beautiful as the holy one painting himself bright red and black with death?
viam novam et viventem:
Stiff-kneed elders make their slow way down the aisle with the plates. We do not think of the hard pews, of the lunch left cooking—rapt, we eat: not the cardboard wafers gluey on our tongues, the grape juice with its sour aftertaste:
carnem suam
love crucified is sweet and heavy in our mouths.
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