POETRY

jaci lawson - art quilter, pattern designer, poet, songwriter
backriverbags.com
Poetry is not for everyone....I get it,
but it inspires me to quilt....
Unnatural Compost
It is not as quiet as death.
There are the faint, papery whisperings
of dry bones
And occasionally from deep beneath
The distant rumbling of an old motor
As if a switch were tapped and some life
remains within.
Unsettled and not yet absorbed
Into the silence of discarded belongings
White Island
Cradle me within your tidal song
You God of ocean, surf and sand.
Bind me with string of wing and wind,
to this ungentle, stony shore.
You God of currents, rhythm, and water,
softly breaking upon my hand.
The Dance Teacher
She doesn’t care that her butt
looks big, and it is big...
Ginormous even.
She sticks it out, stretches further,
as far as she can,
And then, it’s moving,
Like a mountainside,
an avalanche,
And hey now! hey now,
- You want to look away -
But the weight of it is too much,
And it’s all moving.
And then, for a second, it seems
Suspended
And it shifts, just slightly
to the left,
And you can see the shape
of the dance,
The movement, the steps.
The body is still there,
But it’s the rhythm of the thing
that pulls the eye now,
Still there, underneath.
And unselfconscious as a cat,
she writhes,
The shape of it lithe and sinuous.
These steps perfected when
the body was fluid
Still pulling the dance, 
and she remembers,
- Blithe and large – she remembers,
And hey nonny,
She remembers, hey nonny, nonny.
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