DREAM VESSELS # 30 Cabbage Harvest
DRAFT
—From a collage by Marsha Connell
From the sky, a tea bowl gathers in lightning
I thought of black chickens
hovering over the city at night.
Something in the art of tea
electrifying the air.
While in a New England town in fall
the tribeswomen watch the spectacle of the dark sky
gathering greens for their dinner
the streets are quiet
the burlap sack tumescent
the tea bowl circles the city on black wings
and the women reach down to pluck the green and gold
from the trees
to nourish the celestial tribe and the overprivleged
one
perhaps this is where the manna from heaven
originates from
the color of fall trees
you can hear the tea bowl folding its wings
as it settles for the night
the annular division of labor between night and day
equal
no matter where we measure it from
the poles, the equator.
Itís just the way in which itís dished out
that affects where we live, what we eat
it all boils down to the weather
the horse latitudes, the temperate zone
where the trees live
DREAM VESSELS
#37: Mountain Fire Shepherd FIRST
DRAFT
—From a collage by Marsha Connell
The
shepherdess comes out of the burned land and the tent.
The shelter is
not a yurt, but a mountain. Perhaps Tibet.
Where to find
tent poles if there’s a shortage of wood?
Tied to the
door frame, an amulet, laurel leaves and feathers protect her
No one sees
her in all her coral finery
On this
continent or Hawaii she would wear
a feather cloak
Four rams hold
up a chalice to the sky to collect rain
Have the forests
been felled by a volcano, or worse?
homeless birds
watch us.
the bluebird will
not come again, this silent spring
The orb above
the tent is not a moon;
inexorable oil
barrels rise in place of the harvest moon
toward the carbon
past, a march we can’t stop
The fire from
the oil wells in the middle east
will be felt in
the remotness of Tibet
The fire will
darken her life too
though Tibet
is a closed country
Our presence
is felt here too
When I was
little my grandmother gave me a bluebird necklace
This elaborate
vessel. our culture does not invest in such elaborate art
a chalice, for
us to own it is a sacrilege
we don’t have
the investment of feeling for the power of anything natural
this very
humble woman’s at peace with it so it’s more natural to her
Summer 1992
DREAM VESSELS —from collages by Marsha Connell
Summer 1992
DREAM VESSELS —from collages by Marsha Connell
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