April Poetry: Polly Pratt

In recognition of Poetry Month, and to celebrate and highlight our treasure trove of Orcas Island poets, Orcas Issues is pleased and honored to again offer daily poetry during April.

The Sign

When Grace turned 80 in 1991

— by Polly Pratt —

We honored our mother with a meadow on her birthday,
‘Grace’s Meadow,’ the sign, painted in dark green letters
on a white oval, professionally done.

Greatly loved, and deeply modest, Grace protested.
We insisted. It was only a meadow, we told her.
She deserved a continent or at least a star.

Four, quick years, and we planted a cedar overlooking Grace’s Meadow,
an insignificant specimen, but nourished by her ashes, now grown tall and broad
it hides the pine, a living post upon which the sign was bolted.

The sign, intact, remains, the letters worn away by time and weather,
and we are fewer, those who need no letters to read the sign.
The meadow, heedless of signs, oblivious to time, thrives, more lovely now than ever.

EARTH/SEA/SKY

— by Polly Pratt —

EARTH
Softly contoured, feminine, forest spiked,
camouflaged by moss and ferns, suffused by sun,
green filtered light.

Tree roots, penetrating deep, tendrils wide,
as much a part of earth as dirt.
Severed. What use are roots to logs…

Bark stripped, stacked, piercing whine of saw.
Earth configured, bull dozed, built,
Controlled, claimed, tamed, and titled.

SEA
Once, inseparable from shore,
tumbling in to lie herself upon the sand,
languid, lingering, sea in love with land.

Pounding upon rocks, spume flung high, jubilant.
Stilled, gathered into bays, melding with rivers.
Fish filled, ever undulating, alive.

Bulkheads block her ecstatic rush. Platforms, puncture and intrude.
Treasures plundered, her fish caged, estuaries filled.
Oil spills, debris, spread across her rippling, living body.

SKY
Home of sun, moon and stars, touched by mountain peaks.
Stage for clouds, constellations, birds, and storms.
Blue hues, cleansed by rain, caressed by winds and fogs.

Sky scraped by steel and concrete towers; satellite streaked, penetrated.
Rent by rockets, planes, traversed by electromagnetic waves,
carbon dioxide tainted, green house gassed.

Gods, who in Earth/Sea/Sky dwell, forgive us.
Forgive us, oh Gods.

When Time Was Slow

— by Polly Pratt —

Years and years and years ago when I was swift and Time was slow,
I caught him, Time, and put him in a golden cage.
Constrained, he didn’t seem to mind at all.
He laughed, and sang and watched me as I played.

With Time captured, the day was freed to last forever,
but I grew bored, so let him out, tethered by a silken cord.
“Come,” I said, a bossy girl, in charge I thought,
after all I’d made him mine, Time belonged to me, so, young I’d always be.

We sat at a table near the sea, ate strawberry cakes and drank sweet tea.
“I’m yours,” he said, “but only for this day.”
He winked and grinned, was that a leer?
A true friend he was not, I began to fear.

Greedily he ate the cakes and drank his tea, then said, “I must go now…”
but, I spluttered, you belong to me.
He laughed and grabbed the tether,” I’ll not forget you, Dearie, ever.”
“A foolish girl who tried to hold back time and said of aging, never.”

Then he drew himself up, looked stern and said:
“Each day you spend you’ll not get back.
and each year, faster will your clock tick.
Youth will desert you by and by, and one day, no question, you will die.”

A curse? Surely not, I thought, How dare Time threaten me.
I was very young, you see, and believed I’d never die, nor grow old or suffer much.
After all, I’d captured Time once, stopped him in his tracks.
And the idea he could speed things up, did not match with scientific facts.

Years and years and years have past, now I am slow and Time is fast,
And I know twas not a curse, but truth, Time uttered long ago.
Youth did desert (thank God) and older, wiser did I grow….
Accepting death, I find each day more precious now, then when time was slow.