Blog Archives - Creaturely

She Died of Death

2/28/2015

By Reka Jellema. Copyright February 2015.

Her ears twanged
with the twee-twee-twee-
twee-twee-twee-twee
of chilled chickadees

Her body lost its breath
Her spirit left

The doctor said
she died
of death

The sea moved
mountainous and overhead
nimbus and stratus
danced

Black and white
weather the painter
said, taking
The photograph
of a bleak coast

A boy took
bark in his teeth
and tore strips
from the tree
his mouth
bloodied
with grief

the birds fled
still a nest
still a knot
of beach grass
fish twine and smooth
green glass

This is not the end
the Sister said,
her beads circling
in the embroidery
of her hands

By Reka Jellema
Copyright
February 28, 2015

Blessings

2/23/2015

Photography by Reka Jellema. Copyright February 23, 2015

Blessings

Our sons held flowers
in open palms
spun golden thread
from air so thin
it hurt to breathe
it in, and broke
the many hours
it had been
since schoolboys roamed
embattled fields
their lowered guns
directing aim
at borrowed time
at holes
fresh-cleaved
in garden beds
spaded for seed,
petunias, poppies
see them bleed
petals stain
the dirt, shoots of green
to salve the hurt
guns cocked
with dandelions
weaving tenderness
links in daisy chains
the blessings
of the benign
of innocence
uttering the names
of every little man
unhand unarm
offer peace
lilies and open
palms, amen.

Lilacs

2/21/2015

Photography by Reka Jellema. Copyright February 21, 2015.

Lilacs

This life purples before me
This cold will never kill me
implore the winter sky
tell the gray goose
to fly and harken
the cardinal, painted
on the crabapple, now

This life purples before me
Ice box air pearls
our perennials
our rosy children lost
their mittens,
snow bank burials, igloos
of yesteryear

This cold will never kill me
we look to the maples,
remembering green and holly
red berries: Chilled trees
speak to me: Take these lilacs
self-medicate, taste
the song of songs
a slender thread
spooled

Lilacs
breathe
I am not dead
This cold will never kill me
This life
purple
before me

By Reka Jellema & Jennifer Savage
Copyright February 21, 2015

A Parcel of Sky

2/14/2015

Photography by Reka Jellema. Copyright February 2015.

Inspired by Larry Ten Harmsel

A Parcel of Sky

don't do much.

soak up
a single bird
aching a parcel of sky,
listen to oak nuts thudding
as the warmth of July
remembers October
and the pang of pine
rises from the forest fur.

don't ask about the way
she died, if the bruises
were from hard-crabbed apples
stolen from a neighbor's cellar hoard
or the clapboards slapped
from the side of the barn

the rent in her tent
will remain torn

embers from the last fire
smolder on
every twig
swatches of moss
Cicada shells
oak skins, spinning
from invisible yarn

from tree to tree
the hollows yawn.

By Reka Jellema
Copyright
February 14, 2015

Humanitarian

2/12/2015

Copyright February 12, 2015

Humanitarian

Some people find God in church.
Some people find God in nature.
Some people find God in love;
I find God in suffering

~ Kayla Mueller

Let us be still.
Turn from the headlights
rushing the walls, yellow streaks
on the way to other living rooms.
Look away
from the live feed on the big screen
the words crawling, mouthed
by an anchor of the news. Offer
your back to white water, rapids
and falls, quiet now. Hush
the whir of helicopters, halt
the barrel bombs, let rubble
sort the rubble.
Being human
will require care, attend
to her, no longer body, this hole
is no memorial. A place people
go. It is
your funeral. Will there be fanfare?
Will people burn
their phones, shun
their screens, and see
you, the warm
brown eyes, the joy
of being, through
the eyes of a child,
standing in a queue, ears
still ringing?
such a pretty name, Syria:
Bright as the sun,
cradling everyone

By Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack
Copyright February 11, 2015

Eddy

2/8/2015

Minding the cold minuet
your form rocks Hasidic
keys the color of snow, coal
a frozen layer over the river
the blooming and the beating
things just a theory I believe in
and I reject; Did you think
I would forget
you
your accoutrements
the black kettle ringing on time
the heavy sigh of the labrador
as he sinks to the floor
licking cold tile like a Popsicle
your face lost in the white
snowflakes sifting tonight
the sting in my eyes
tiny blades of ice
driven by winter, shush
the never-never
plunk of the chords
sheets of Liszt, Chopin
blown down, the sour note
of the pewter sugar bowl
emptied; cold traces
like stars cross
the baby grand

By Reka Jellema & Jennifer Savage
Copyright February 2015

Silos

2/8/2015

Photography by Reka Jellema. Copyright February 2015

Silos

Driving home on rural roads, evening clouds
a gathering of cows, stolid muted husks
under the stars, a pair of silos watch
the silhouette of barn -- this farm,
these corn shuckings, poking
at the snow, the shiver
of the crow, wild turkeys far
from home, dim shapes
in the dusk, lurk at the horizon, lurch
between blueberry bushes,
fire in the dark, while in the coop
the chicks pop and glow, warmed
by violent light, hens and a cock
or two bunk down, feathering old wood
with pluckings, I can smell
brown eggs, feel the smooth shells, see
the warm ghosts of cow breath in the field,
and on and on the road, away
from Evelyn and John, the plot,
the old farmhouse, the schoolhouse
and the church, so small and white,
the chickadees, he knew their song, Dutch apple pie
she made the crust, butter, lard,
the pantry and the stores
Take the row beyond, corn land,
row upon row
withering gold
this winter longing
for your gnarled hand, soft
and damp with love, grandmother

you held me in, cupped
my cropped hair, stroked
my furrows, ploughed
with rough intellect, ruffled
with poems and suicide
and gin.

By Reka Jellema
Copyright February 2015

Goodbye Haiku

2/8/2015

Photography by Reka Jellema. February 2015

Goodbye Haiku

Bedside
every breath
was
your last

5 a.m.
you left us
wordless

All I know: Goodbye
our time
is coming

Respirator
each breath
a shadow
of a breath

By Reka Jellema
Copyright
February 2015

Wisteria

2/8/2015

Photograph by Reka Jellema. Copyright Reka Jellema February 2015.

Wisteria

Take the photo
from the mantle, run
the cloth around the wood
gentle,
gentle, to shine the surface
of its dust

A sister fades
by cornice framed
her countenance
her parted lips
the breath of all
she need not say
Forget-me-not,
O Mother:

Mother, trust
the herbs
the shrubs
trimmed to ornament
trust Darjeeling
flowers tamed
in slow spill
from vases
placed just so

Trust our house, the spiral
stairs, the hiding places
her violet tangle
of Wisteria

Blinds the windows
binds the walls
where weatherboards
meet at corners
and the gentle vine
is trussed

Wisteria, wisteria,
enter us, twine
her knotted hands
that touch
the grandfather clock
to quicken
hour by hour
an ever ticking
hush.

By Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack
Copyright Reka Jellema & Brendan Bonsack
January 2015