Poetry By Ruby Hansen Murray

Chumlee10 CC




The Woodland Bottoms


Above Bone Pile Farm clouds of starlings 
twist above bare fields. Unnamed islands 
cut by sloughs, fields of wapato arrowhead flags. 

A swinging railroad bridge, trailers on dirt
in the bend at Burke’s Slough, a dragon fly.
Blueberry fields bursting fruit, mechanical pickers.   

Hispanic men in orange t-shirts, yellow hard hats line up
to sign off skills among Cats and cranes on the sandy bank. 

East into the foothills of St. Helens, black 
semi-automatic weapons on a white flag. 

Large houses overlook mown meadows, fir-covered ridges. 
Chartreuse light from a moss-covered tree, 
the green of maple leaves beyond. Early afternoon, 

a couple in their sixties on the porch of a small cabin. 
The wife’s blue shirt, her husband beige, the narrow porch.

​


Ruby Hansen Murray is a citizen of the Osage and Cherokee Nations, and the regular culture columnist for the Osage News. Her essays have won The Iowa Review and Montana Nonfiction Prizes and Notable Best American Essay 2025. “On Sunny Sands” published by Red Bird Chapbooks is forthcoming. 
​