Poems from just two of the Madrona Writers featured at the Northwind February 7th Reading

Red Season
by Jenifer Lawrence
She’s going to climb the Madrona this year,
wrap her arms around its peeling trunk,
ask how it felt to cradle the moon
and whether its leaves trembled
from the graze of light or from the wind.
She will listen for the hum of sap,
mold her form into its creases and knobs.
She’s going to love this tree for dying,
steadfast in dying light. She’ll call
goldfinches from the field, send them
for string and grass and thistle down
to build a nest in the Madrona’s center,
make a family it can live with while she’s gone.

————————————————————————-
Fort Worden, February
by Gayle Kaune

It’s not enough to simply return,
as if we were swallows that held an annual
gathering and carried a bright currency,
small vials of lavender and myrrh, in our beaks -
as if the pink sunsets we see over our right wings
flying here could erase the moss and lichen
we leave behind.

No, the smoke of this story
is that to mirror those birds
in our gathering, we must fly
through the red of our dawns,
and the indigo of our darkest lives,
writing ourselves into a circle,
a warming winter home.

(This announcement expires at 1:00am on Sunday June 13th, 2010)