Poetry by Lynda Skeen

              ​Maria Eklind CC




Conglomerate Rock

​
Brother, 
we have been in this creek bed for generations,
broken off from our parental mountains and washed downstream,
squeezed between other fragments and falling sand
while time poured,
trickled,
then dried up around us.
We are what’s left behind
after the soft parts have washed away.

Tonight, crows caw in the cooling air,
eucalyptus leaves rustle upside down,
wind growls in the empty core of the bamboo.
A new storm is brewing.
The dark sky promises more change.
Such energy it takes to break down,
to build up.





Broken Open


After the amethyst shattered,
a ray of light
exploded through
her newly revealed crystalline beauty,
and through her tears, 
she said to the grace
that had always been inside her,
"Thank you."





The Color Pink


Now she’s just showing off.
Pink.
Wrapping my aversion to her in the
blush of spring trillium 
here in the woods.
Cradling my hesitation as
if it were a baby wrapped in a 
soft cotton blanket
with silky trimmed edges. 
Distant pink wafts in the wind
from a nearby rose bush.

With bottomless kindness,
Pink offers me
respite from exhaustion and anxiety.
Shows me that she’s been here all along -
in the wool squares of the Navajo rug on my wall,
the smooth rose quartz on my altar.

She says she is not
the weakness I fear,
a denial of darkness, 
syrupy sweetness at the expense of truth,
washed out emotion, sentimentality, 
girlishness,
or unprotected vulnerability.

Pink roars with courage in my heart
as I hear gunshot over the hill and
feel an old wound of fear open in my chest.
“Stay here with me,” she says,
“you can feel more than one thing at a time.”
The mix a swirl of 
wonder, of the unknown,
even as I hyperventilate with panic.
“Stay with me,” she says,
“don’t leave yourself.”

I thought I had an aversion to Pink.
She shows me she has never left,
invites me into a primal embrace,
the sky transitioning into whatever comes next,
my heart suddenly big enough,
strong enough,
safe enough,
to take it all in.

​

​
​Lynda Skeen lives in Ashland, Oregon.  She is grateful to be sober and able to enjoy the beauty around her, running around in the forests as often as she can.  She has been published in a variety of journals, including ONE ART, The Halcyone Literary Review, North American Review, Lucid Stone, and The Hyacinth Review.