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2409 Jefferson Street
Port Townsend, WA
360-379-1086

Terry Martin

Like the River, You Cannot Stop

Out here, in these woods,

you touch what will outlast you.

Empty, wordless, ready to be filled,

you hear ancient sighs

in the branch, trembling,

in wood catching fire.

This river makes a way. 

Like time, its current goes

only one direction.

Yielding to the flow,

you are listening for the sound

of trees becoming themselves,

for that small moment when

geese begin their landing,

when root splits the rock,

greedy for light. 

Swagman

We're eighteen and twenty on this hill,

clueless that neither of us

will ever know a simpler season.

Deep in these woods, you and I

build something new and frightening,

coming closer, exchanging glances,

confidences, secrets untold ‘til then.

Doing the best we could with how little we knew,

telling ourselves, without promises, we might

stumble our way on this unmarked trail

of negotiated joy, that a summer's

pure desiring and unrestrained union

might hold, remain deep

in our minds and hearts forever.

And so it has, thirty years

as now I recall first exploits we dared

when you stood, clear, in strong sunlight,

on the brink of adulthood,

meeting my gaze and gift

with a full return

that lives in me still,

undiminished. 

Insomnia

Here in the last gasp of the season,

heat tornadoes her aging body

leaving her twisting and turning in its wake.

Swimming up at 2 a.m., thrashing the covers,

drenched in sweat, heart hammering,

she lies open-eyed in the dark again.

What do birds say to each other

with their clicks and screeches?

What gave Silly Putty its comforting smell?

What color was Nancy Drew’s roadster?

Was her ‘boyish friend,’ George, a lesbian?

If e-books take over, what will happen to libraries?

Once, against a brick wall

in navy blue light, three women in a row

read aloud about sleepless nights.

Dangerous poems, tender and troubled.

She didn’t understand then.

Now, longing won’t bring that deep drowning

sleep which might retrieve her.

Late at night she roams from room to room,

stumbling.  She will create new habits,

shaped to her contours like bedsheets.

Brew a cup of herbal tea, vanilla almond

or Good Earth, sip it slowly.

Watch the Home & Garden channel.

Do a crossword. Make a list.

Then tunnel back into the storm

of her bed, force herself to stay there,

mind blurred in this waking limbo,

world tilting on its axis.

She’ll try prayer, meditation.

Fingering worries one bead at a time.

Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic.

Cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus.

Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria.

Estoy, estás, está.

When morning arrives too soon,

she will feel the slap of the world

against her cheek.               

—Terry Martin