11/2/2018 Poetry by Beth WhitneyMercy And we are all so raw The sort of raw where kindness cuts in Like a surgery blade And a searing light Pours into our grave From the soft eyes Of a stranger Mercy. ———// Grief Who do you tell When you hate everything When your breathing out Is second hand smoke That you’ve seen slip out To wilt the world So you swallow and swallow And swallow the smoke You burn and burn and burn In your chest In your insides And you taste the ashes Don’t you Don’t you taste the ashes And anger, they say, is grief So you turn and you look For a smoldering sign And as soon as you look There are mountains And mountains And mountains of grief And you don’t hate anything at all And nothing is burning And the smoke is really fog Hung in mournings that never woke up That never let go of the forest floor It is damp and cold and terribly alive And it is everywhere And you stumble back small and lay still... Stand up now and ask. And you do You yell out to the mountains of fog What do you want from me! Why won’t you bury me! [No one has ever made a brick Out of grief You have to pull that clay from the earth Lay it alone in the sun Over and over and over Until you are the smartest pig] And you say it again. What do you want from me! Why won’t you bury me! And your grief reaches out to you then Like a beautiful woman Like a childhood friend Like a grandmother Unfolding her outstretched hand Full believing in her eyes And you wonder What would happen If you didn’t scramble back this time ————-// Beth Whitney crafts original wild folk from a homestead in the seasonally rich mountains of the Pacific Northwest. “She delves beneath the surface-- sometimes far beneath-- trying to find... something. What she creates during that search is haunting and eerily beautiful.” Frank Gutch Jr., No Depression. Comments are closed.
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