Poetry by Beth Whitney

Mercy

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.