24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
Nancy Canyon is a visual artist and writer working in Historic Fairhaven, 1000 Harris, #6, Bellingham, WA. Her award winning novel, "Celia's Heaven," a book of poems, "Saltwater," and "Women's Bodies, Women's Words" an anthology of abortion poems and personal essays can be purchased at Villagebooks.com. Her memoir Struck: A Season on a Fire Lookout launches September 20th at Village Books in Fairhaven, a quaint village overlooking Bellingham Bay. She teaches writing at WCC and coaches memoir writers for The Narrative Project. She is a Graduate of PLU with the MFA in creative writing: fiction/poetry. She is married and lives near Lake Whatcom.
Listen, breathe, taste rosehips,
blackberries, submerge yourself in cold
water, run until you drop: sweat,
pant, then just lie there looking at the sky.
Can you see the river splashing before
your eyes? Listen and you will hear
everyone talking at once. Do you know
what He meant when He called you?
Keeping the river in mind
I swim to you through
time and across the miles
to tell you I’ve never forgotten
you. And I’m so grateful for
your tutelage—even though
I grew up with a different father.
I heard what you said coming along
the river, words clear as mountain
sky. I love you so, dearest father.
The soup between us is colorless and it’s thought to be
liquid, but it could be energy or some mercurial substance
we haven’t discovered yet. It’s warm and cold depending
on outside configurations of clouds and wind and moisture—
but basically it’s without temperature or solidity or liquidity.
The soup between us has no taste—unless the dairy farm’s
nearby or the lumberyard—a dirty clothes hamper, but still
that’s not it. It’s not the transmitter we call “the soup” for lack
of a better name. Well, perhaps the river that connects up all.
The river, yes–that’s it. “The river.”
They say toads are the first to go
then the fields and streams, ice
and fresh air to breath, our furry
friends and the flying ones, too.
Between you and me, send out
a pure line of white light; string
upon it what you love the most—
my guess is all of it. Then prepare
to fortify the web of life against
degradation, against the odds.
Today I changed something about my behavior and a friend did as well. We gawked at each other in amazement. No more washing potatoes at the stream but now altering our DNA. Gone sickle cell anemia or Huntington’s disease. It’s tight, this circuit of lines running between you and me. Discover the code, ready to stand before the new world.
The cat curls into a ball
as does the dog. We pull our
knees to our chest—turning
inward, traveling in time back
to womb when everything
was copasetic—now we’re
blind with brilliance expanding
into the open –our next stage
of evolution? Light streams
from billions of cells like stars
in our galaxy.
Light grows like weeds
in and out—swift slips
inside dark recesses, cracks
cave to brillance.
Far off in the universe,
dust and wind wash
away turbulence—all unseen.
Still, we chill down our spines,
turn to reach another,
nodding.
Like a delta, space empties
and opens into the sea between.
our bodies–converging, swaying
and parting; fluid feelings beneath
the skin and cells—thoughts wired
as one grid. Vast as universe, tiny
as mushroom minutia—
a message system between all.