top of page
Writer's pictureLammergeier Staff

Waving Hands in Clouds | Lisa Creech Bledsoe


There are no days when I forget

there is something wrong


My hand is frozen in the shape of

the cup I held, before it slipped—

I had it a moment, a wink and thunderclap

I stiffen, shake. Translations are canceled


Breathing

is something I practice like

memorizing holy writ, the rush and hiss of rain


which of course is inspired and

ludicrous, breathing

against neural scrap as if it were

beeswax to be warmed by hand

and transmuted with a wink and a curtsey


and it is of course.

The ascetics, the dirty-feet mystics

make everything look so easy


This breath

is a profession of monastic

years and endurance, the long stint

in a small cell, so many small cells. I confess


there are no days when I forget although

there are some I wink and wave and

practice tai chi on the mountain

in the pooling mist

once the storm passes. My body


the shape in the forest floor

after the tree is upended

debris scattered, roots

shocked and startling against the sky, ahh


I breathe, not so much to regrow

as to make a conscious altar for offerings—

a stack of acorn caps, a snail shell or curl of grapevine

in the greening woods, in the holy grove.





Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She is the author of two full-length books of poetry, Appalachian Ground (2019), and Wolf Laundry (2020). She has new poems out or forthcoming in American Writers Review, The Main Street Rag, The Public Poetry 2020 Anthology, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and River Heron Review, among others.


0 comments

Comments


bottom of page