Carolyn Evans Campbell: Three Poems

Saguaro

The Saguaro tree springs

from a sea floor turned

inside out, upside down,

drained and dried into desert.

 

And so it stands,

a bit like us

looking all wrong

out of the water, no longer

plant nor colony, fish

nor worm.

 

Born from a briny deep,

a salty past

out of time, out of place,

it holds fast to the clay,

clings to its sea mother’s ghost.

 

Tortured by wind,

limbs twist around

invisible walls, grow

without reason

nor symmetry.

Still it balances

in skin of spines

and protects its softer self.

 

Life to the chuckwalla,

wood rat and raven,

ground squirrel, beetle,

yucca moth, ant,

it is a universe in itself,

a complete system –

host, oasis,

endangered,

stubborn.

Carolyn Evans Campbell

 

Throwing Stones at a Nice Moon

I threw a pebble

at the proud white moon

dosing in the lake

to see it shatter

into a swarm of silver fish.

The shivering moon

returned round and

I threw another pebble.

It splintered, the fish flashed

and scattered.

The moon swam away

to the other side of the world

and I sat in the dark.

Carolyn Evans Campbell

 

Vibrations

I can no longer

swallow your tears

take your pain

eat your fears

though they eat you

 

I can’t fulfill

the love you need

be new skin

 

I only feel a jarring

In my bones

when your shoulders shake

my spine splitting

when you tremble

 

Your silences

when you slip away

dragging your bruised soul

like a deflated balloon

are my small deaths

 

little rat moments

that eat my organs

chew through arteries

leave me bleeding

 

That is why

the earth is red

my son

my son

Carolyn Evans Campbell