Close-Looking Woman
a praise-name for the high branch
A bolt of thunder and every woman with more than one name looks up without moving her eyes. Rain women. Hail women. Owl women on the high branch of the Iroko, sitting so still the men mistake them for weather. They do not stare. Staring is for one-name women. Bad pony women. Bad horse women. Women in town cars that have never learned dirt. Women who hear thunder and grip the wheel too hard. Women who think a paved road means safe passage. High in the Iroko, the bird women do not move. They know better. They know which tire will fail before the shoulder takes it. They know who is lying by the way the coffee cools. They know what enters a room before the body does. The Arrow Bird- when you say her praise-name, touch the ground lightly. Homage. The ground hears first. The head lowers because it knows. Do not call what you cannot stand before. Some doors are older than doctrine. A name like that is not speech. It is a knock on the oldest door. The Arrow Bird hears. Close-Looking Woman. Cloud Woman. Moss Woman. Double Bell Woman. Woman of Dew. Woman of Loam. Red Resin Woman- hearing before the tongue finds its door Bird women are not finished being birds. They are owl and plant both. They appear then disappear into the crook of the branch. becoming gale becoming loam Some are named by rain, by ash, by the door that opened once and never again. Some carry a whole council under the tongue and still say nothing. That is how the old trees stay standing. Iroko above them. Ceiba below, holding the dead by their ankles so they do not float away. That is how the storm finds its sisters. Not by calling. By listening for the woman who does not flinch when the sky breaks open.
Thank you for the tag John Sheils ~ Use any line to write your poem Adrienne Veronese Jolene Thibodeaux Nimila Giles Joe Kearney Thom Valicenti Dr. Jennifer Haddock
Hokte Fusev Ponayetv
powerful...