[I’m extremely pleased to add a new poet to the wonderful list of contributors here on Robert Frost’s Banjo. Mairi Graham-Shaw is a writer with a deeply poetic sensibility & a fearless inventiveness. Please join me in welcoming her!]
two fingers and a promise
i cannot tell you
how we speak
without words
and as a poet
should deny the possibility
it came from her
like water from a rock
blessed are you, child
a maker of peace
she spoke without quotation marks
the metaphor she used was sexual
like peace could be some sticky secretion
staining my sheets
like i could coax it out
with two fingers and a promise
the light swooned around her
and clung to her
like she'd pulled down the sulky luminescence
of an almost rainy day
for her gown
blessed are you
whose blood spills out on the ground
the angels were so high above
as to be irrelevant
holding up the molding of the sky
grey winged as clouds
but their falling feathers burned
still hot to touch when they fell
ashy, on my shoulders
Mairi Graham-Shaw
© 2012
I was impressed with this the first time I read it and am more impressed now. "Fearless inventiveness." Now there's an enviable label to have attached to you.
ReplyDeletethe line, "she spoke without quotation marks" really gets me for some reason. simple, yet profound. it's quite a wonderful & imaginative piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks to both of you for taking the time to comment! I'm so happy to have Mairi contributing her work on Robert Frost's Banjo!
ReplyDelete@GMairi: Yes, this is quite an impressive poem, I agree!
@Barbie: That is a great line--thanks for pointing it out! : )