|
|
|
|
Two Poems
Kathryne Lim
Where The Valley Meets The Sky
At the end of the day
the geese fly north over the Valdez Bridge
Each one unfolding
like a Chinese fan
and falling into a crisp seam
in the sky
The geese fly over
this valley of rusted mobile homes,
steel-webbed towers, and wire
their wingtips nearly touching
the tops of barren winter trees
The geese glide over distant hills
then plummet toward a river plain
abutted by a heap of ashen sand
Concrete mixers and gravel piles
fade away in the background
For just as the sun sets in the horizon,
the geese fly over
like a curtain
drawing itself over this golden land
***
Happy, Texas
Out on the west Texas plains
the wind pulls the body like wild grass.
Dust kicks up like storm
only to settle within the canyons
and cracks of broken rocks.
Don’t drink the water here, my friend advises
as she pulls out a metal flask.
I finger a willowy mesquite tree,
food for this thirsty land.
When she first moved here she told me
of the Christ crucifix mounted on her wall.
It was there when she moved here,
and there it remains.
Afraid to remove it she’d rather cover it
with a kerchief when she fornicates.
I think of how the body can yield, just like land.
A lonely cypress in the desert
digs its heels in the ground.
Many crosses will appear to me
during my stay in the plains,
falling as naturally as logs in a woodpile
near an abandoned church.
Driving away even the windmills
resemble crosses from afar.
White and erect they stand
like gleaming beacons of purity,
harnessing the wanton winds that enter
and taming them into submission.
Kathryne Lim was born in Seoul, Korea, learned to read and write in England, and has lived in Texas and New Mexico most of her adult life. She has been thinking quite a bit about place and the idea of rootedness lately. She is pleased that two poems she was inspired to write on the subjects have found a place in the written world.
In Posse: Potentially, might be . . .
|