The Fear That Love Brings

"I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern—"
--Sylvia Plath, Fever 103°

Last night I found a note
That you wrote to me;
Marking a passage in "Fever 103°":

"Sammy,
I love you so much,
I will be yours 4ever,
Bee mine.
Love,
Lauren"

And I remembered that I
Never wanted you to be anything
Like Sylvia Plath.

(nor I like Ted Hughes.)


copyright 2006 Samuel Lewis Nelson

Faced With Realizations About Migration, The Cat Pauses (A Ghost Storyt, May 4, 2007, 7:10 a.m.)

Risen and bathed in morning air
Between waking and sleep;
The eastern light remembers night
With shadows that aren't deep.

I've washed the Breakfast dishes, a Plate
And Bowl, but I'm still using
The stained Cup ringed by cold coffee
When I am stalled with thinking:

The cat lurks in the Window Sill.
She presses to the screen
Watching Birds roost in Trees-- Locusts.
This is no time to preen!
A flock of of small yellow Songbirds--
Goldfinches, catch her gleaming eye.
The screen is crowded by her face,
Drawn to dawns early morning sky.

She sees them "arrive" as sober
Little Lights. Slight colors
That fade so timorously
Into the sky's pale palors.

Bright flashes having already sung
This Elysian Field is out
Of sight: a Potter's Field flooded
With light like a low fount.

Some little birds fly to the sun.
Goldfinches are Little
Birds. Goldfinches fly to the sun.
The screen is not brittle;
She can not chase the Little Birds.
Either the Birds will fly to the bright
Son or the Sun will fly to these Birds.
She can not run into the bright light.

The Sun did not fly to these birds,
Therefore the Birds did fly
To the sun. The cat can not follow
Them into the vast sky.

Animals with wings can fly away.
Cats are not animals with
Wings. Cats can not fly away. She's
Bound to the living earth.

She sulks off to the sunlit floor;
Making me think that sleep's
A good idea on a morning such
As this one. That if it's deep
I will keep less of what I know.
I can not follow them into
The sky either. What I do know
Is never going to be enough.

The Great Salt Lake

Do you remember when
we went to swim
in the great salt lake?
And could neither float
nor sink?

Do you remember how
the wet and the sun felt
on our naked bodies?
It was nothing like sex
in the dark--
as I remember it.

Do you remember the broken
bird we found? A delicate
creature we caradled in our
slender, knobby arms,
before we made a cradle
of sticks lined with dead,
reedy marsh grass,
and bid it a bittersweet
farewell.

Do you remember the stray tom
found outside on the stoop?
scatched, limping
and licking it's wounds in the sun?
The windblown door-- heavier than
I could reasonably push, closing
quickly and loudly. Startled into
the quiet street and the passing
car-- which destroyed me.

Do you remember when
we swam in the Great Salt Lake?
Where we emerged baptismally
from the water,
as naked
as we slid into the water?
And we felt different,
but never really changed.


copyright 2006 Samuel Lewis Nelson

Some Birds I have Known

1)
The high Oak tree cradles the black crow bird
Turned over on it's back, on a branch,
With inky feathers folded by it's breast.
The black crow bird sings "Tonight's like winter,
There are frost locked caskets at this oaks roots,"
As inky night sweeps him into the dark.

2)
A water colored parakeet sings in the dark
Kitchen like a kettle full of jail birds.
I chose a knife to pare a carrot root
And carefully prune a spring green celery branch.
I saute these two on a dark winter
Night as the birds arias vibrate breasts.

3)
While eating, I glimpse a Goldfinches breast
Through the window and see, that in the dark,
It's nothing like true gold in cold winter
Air. there are not any brambles for this bird
To hide in this close to the tree's frail roots;
No thick thorns grow on that low sappling branch.

4)
A drawing of Vultures on a dead branch
Hangs balanced over the sink. They sit breast
To breast, waiting for carrion at the root;
They wait for smaller birds bodies like dark
Shadows or small clouds mistaken for birds.
The Vultures bury what's leaving like winter.

5)
I step outside and night smells like winter.
The morning light will break over the branches.
The neighbors feeders fill with Sparrow Birds;
Who empty it of seeds and puff out their breasts
As light replaces nights bloody red dark
With what god planted; the worlds own first root.

6)
Dawn's light is like tender leaves on a branch,
That has awaited the sweet sleep winter
Brings to gentle hands reaching into darks
Pale nest to touch the eggs at the old root
That grows out from the nourishing worlds breast,
Where new feathers grow on the wings of birds.

7)
Cold pushes my breast to my ribs like branches.
The air is cold like winter. It is not dark.
The black crow bird is gone; flown to the root.