Bamboo
There is a lake in the suffering. And
the horses come to drink. Their despair
like light, moving from the prairie, as
before a storm. The mare and her foal
one larger in her balance, the other
spindly, legs as long as reeds. The song
is wind then, water moving through bamboo,
the hallow of this grove of trees that speaks
where you might speak, straw and russet
candlelight--Lie thee down, feathered child
this is how the blanket sings, woven on
the loom, two threads of in us do not part
the open shell, deeper sorrow, the other
rawer, cutting anger, bracing here against
a promise. That you will be covered, and
rise up, like two with their necks, bent
down to this, milky, sucking, as I do now
for you, unsaddled, spreading, night
Jamie Ross has published two books, Life Beyond the Picture Plane (1995) and Growing Things at Night (1994), both limited-edition collections of poems with paintings. He has taught at the Universities of Colorado and Illinois, and under the auspices of the New Mexico Artist-in-Residence Program. He was a finalist for both last year's Pablo Neurda Poetry Award and the 1999 New Letters Literary Award for Poetry. Poems are forthcoming in Nimrod, The Texas Observer, and the Sonora Review. He lives near Taos, New Mexico.
Copyright ©2000 Jamie Ross