Poems by Anne Whitehouse
“A
Dog’s Life”
By Anne Whitehouse
Come
down to the lake with me.
Real
winter is here at last,
ice
crystals and freezing fogs,
the
sun so bright it hurts my eyes.
Veils
of mist like gossamer silk
drift
over snow that blows over ice
where
our dogs chase after each other,
making
the most of what they have,
be
it a stick or a snowbank.
“Balm”
By Anne Whitehouse
A
parade of goats clambered down the path,
bells
clanging. Between two cliffs
jutting
out to sea was a green valley
with
a gray road like a fallen ribbon
surrounded
by palm groves
and
little houses like white sugar cubes
sprinkled
down the slope.
The
ocean crashed against the cliffs,
frothing
white on dark blue, and puffy
white
clouds massed on the horizon
beyond
the shadowy shapes of distant islands.
The
air smelled of sweet juniper, as I bit
into
the soft flesh of a ripe fig and
basked
in the warm October sun.
“Earthly
Paradise”
By Anne Whitehouse
“…in
dreaming,
The
clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready
to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I
cried to dream again.”
Shakespeare, The Tempest, III, ii, 140-3.
A
waterfall for every day of the year
and
the water so clean I could drink
from
everywhere I saw it flowing.
Mountains
and ravines, a tangle
of
vegetation, blue and green.
Night
and day the surf beat
against
the rocky shores,
and
the forest was full of sounds—
leaves
rustling and the sweet song
of
the mountain nightingale,
an
elusive bird nesting
in
the hollow trunks of trees.
In
the lowlands, near the river,
grapefruit
hung from the trees
like
golden suns,
and
a young woman,
her
skirt hiked above her knees,
bare-breasted,
stood in the shallow river
where
it ran over rocks,
washing
her clothes.
It
could have been a scene
from
a pastoral idyll of long ago
that
perhaps never existed,
a
dream of someone’s life.
Into
that life came a storm
that
took everything away.
The
woman I’d seen placidly washing
her
clothes in a green dream
lost
the blue house on the hillside
built
by her husband—
all
they had worked and strived for
washed
away in the mudslide
after
the hurricane,
when
two months of rain
fell
in a single day.
“Tides
of the Body”
By Anne Whitehouse
Breath,
shape-changer,
the
organs gently swaying in their fascial hammocks
like
the flora and fauna of an undersea world—
the
yellow of the small intestine,
deep
coral of the liver, green bile duct,
pancreas
the color of the ocean floor.
Blood
circulating through arterial rivers
in
an endless loop.
Gently
I placed my fingers
over
the openings of my ears.
The
sound of my breath inside my throat
was
like the echo in a seashell,
ever-present,
softly audible.
I
tuned out the world for a moment
so
I could listen.
“Protest
Poem”
By Anne Whitehouse
In memory of Katie Lee
(1919-2017)
I
only had a decade in Glen Canyon,
from
my first visit to when they destroyed it.
In
that blissful time when I was a river runner,
I
swam in its potholes and waterfalls
and
explored its hundred side canyons, each one unique.
The
rapids and the breezes blowing over them
spoke
to me like dear companions.
When
I was with them, I never felt alone.
When
they drowned that place, they drowned my whole guts.
I
will never forgive the bastards. May they rot in hell.
My
human race betrayed me, greedy fools
with
the mania to destroy all the sanctuaries.
I
don’t care if we’re all blotted out.
I’d
rather be a coyote.
-
Anne Whitehouse’s poetry and fiction have appeared in two Bibliotekos
anthologies: Being Human: Call of the
Wild and Pain and Memory:
Reflections on the Strength of the Human Spirit in Suffering. She is
the author of six poetry collections, most recently Meteor Shower (Dos Madres Press), as well as a novel, Fall Love.
Copyright©2020
by Anne Whitehouse. All Rights Reserved