Prose Poems
I
wrote these poems at a meeting of the Tennessee Poetry Society, which included a prose poetry workshop with Anne Fisher-Wirth. I first encountered her poetry in the anthology Elemental South. Fisher-Wirth is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi, and co-editor of Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology
The event was a tremendous opportunity to create some new poems. Fisher-Wirth ended her presentation with the prompt “In That Kitchen.” My response and two other prose poems follow.
In That Kitchen
I washed the dishes in a sink near the stove where an elderly immigrant prepared the food. Sometimes the owner worked the grill and fed me hamburgers he had overcooked. “Why throw them out?” he’d say.
One day, they were swamped. A waitress asked me if I could make the coffee. I looked dubiously at the machine with multiple glass pots and warmers, and she laughed when I said I had never used that kind of coffee maker before. She said, “Just push that black button.”
So I pushed the button, and hot water poured from four spouts. She hadn’t mentioned the tray that slid under the spouts, the paper filter that went into the tray, or the pre-measured bag of coffee that went into the filter.
I contemplated the clean spot on the floor left behind by the mop and thought of how much easier the percolator on the stove back home must be. I never learned how to make restaurant coffee.
Two Above the Swamp at Curtain Pole Road
You circle and call above the shoreline with wings so light I could think the sun shines through. Each year I see you in pairs, here or at some other sanctuary, where you court by locking talons and fall toward the earth. Soon, eggs will need warmth, and nestlings will need to be fed.
Red-shouldered Hawks, you are Death to mice and voles. Your bodies are fires to consume flesh, and you will feed young fires. They will fly off before they learn to hunt. They will pick off rabbits and mice injured by cars and scavenging roadkill. Sometimes they become roadkill.
Those who survive will turn circles above the swamps and marshes next spring. They will find a partner and a nest tree for another turn of the cycle. Death to mice and voles, you are life to my soul.
Warming Up
The trees have stood for years, and chemical messages travel from tree to tree. Each tells the others when bugs attack, so they will make the repellents they concocted over the years of chemical history.
Can they tell the others of fires? It would likely be too late. Some species survive with corky bark, while others burn and make room for others.
Today, chainsaws are warming up. The fire in their engines will spin a blade to chew away bark and heartwood. At the sawmill, they will become boards.
I
wrote these poems at a meeting of the Tennessee Poetry Society, which included a prose poetry workshop with Anne Fisher-Wirth. I first encountered her poetry in the anthology Elemental South. Fisher-Wirth is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi, and co-editor of Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology
The event was a tremendous opportunity to create some new poems. Fisher-Wirth ended her presentation with the prompt “In That Kitchen.” My response and two other prose poems follow.
In That Kitchen
I washed the dishes in a sink near the stove where an elderly immigrant prepared the food. Sometimes the owner worked the grill and fed me hamburgers he had overcooked. “Why throw them out?” he’d say.
One day, they were swamped. A waitress asked me if I could make the coffee. I looked dubiously at the machine with multiple glass pots and warmers, and she laughed when I said I had never used that kind of coffee maker before. She said, “Just push that black button.”
So I pushed the button, and hot water poured from four spouts. She hadn’t mentioned the tray that slid under the spouts, the paper filter that went into the tray, or the pre-measured bag of coffee that went into the filter.
I contemplated the clean spot on the floor left behind by the mop and thought of how much easier the percolator on the stove back home must be. I never learned how to make restaurant coffee.
Two Above the Swamp at Curtain Pole Road
You circle and call above the shoreline with wings so light I could think the sun shines through. Each year I see you in pairs, here or at some other sanctuary, where you court by locking talons and fall toward the earth. Soon, eggs will need warmth, and nestlings will need to be fed.
Red-shouldered Hawks, you are Death to mice and voles. Your bodies are fires to consume flesh, and you will feed young fires. They will fly off before they learn to hunt. They will pick off rabbits and mice injured by cars and scavenging roadkill. Sometimes they become roadkill.
Those who survive will turn circles above the swamps and marshes next spring. They will find a partner and a nest tree for another turn of the cycle. Death to mice and voles, you are life to my soul.
Warming Up
The trees have stood for years, and chemical messages travel from tree to tree. Each tells the others when bugs attack, so they will make the repellents they concocted over the years of chemical history.
Can they tell the others of fires? It would likely be too late. Some species survive with corky bark, while others burn and make room for others.
Today, chainsaws are warming up. The fire in their engines will spin a blade to chew away bark and heartwood. At the sawmill, they will become boards.
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