CLARION CALL

It’s easy to scapegoat anything to

avoid the discomfort of

knowing something.

Meanwhile halfway across the world,

a woman seethes with discontent,

appears in dreams

skinning otters.

Man with the cowboy hat

displeases her, unsettles. She

steps back, reflects – who holds the

Power to heal, the

Power to harm?

As the skinning flint drops from her

trembling hand, a glow emanates.

Awakened, she begins taking

control of her destiny.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

photo credit: http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2008/bluske_brit/

PUZZLE

Purposely intent on dissolving barriers

between them,

hot in pursuit of a fantasy, she

travels – not in time or space but

colliding her home into his.

Preternaturally.

Weaving words into borders so

strong they contain her willfulness –

Misguided missives rendering thinking

insoluble.

Light slanting through the

open window showers dust motes like

wisdom.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

TREED

To be inside one’s head trying to

converse – nothing insignificant and yet

too much fullness in what

cannot be candidly expressed.

Caught here and

beyond human meandering – the

other being completely unknowable yet

startling, indelible –

Trying too hard and then snapping that

tenuous thread – easy distraction to

one who doesn’t probe or

want anything.

Vapid longing like

hydrogen seeking

one atom of oxygen.

Now trees on the other hand –

we share an arbor mentality, a

greenness of spirit – the

universal language of leaves.

No pretense or striving to be

anything and yet standing,

wet with truth,

form in the formless –

relying on common

perceptions that allow us to

exist in the

heart of creation.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

SINCE YOU ASKED

Corn reminds me of tilling soil,

pushing kernels into ground

damp with newly exposed skin,

fragrant as a newborn day.

Mopping brow as

mosquito drone pierces ears,

socks, shoes and wool meant to

ward off the spring chill –

Exciting baby grackles in

joyful chorus on half-rotten

fenceposts set to keep out

deer and lazy raccoons who return,

along with mature crows, to

feast on midsummer’s harvest.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

A VERY SHORT TALE

Pain in profile, she ditched a job in the city for a life she couldn’t dream. Left the town where she was born and brought up, carefully amputating history, just in case the danger of new demands would reveal her.

Wild-haired, green eyed and just over forty, she pined half a lifetime for a different outlook, more streamlined and less wiry and broad-backed. Her temperament, though nothing could be changed, was prickly and intolerant.

If anyone could see her now at seventy, they would grit teeth and bear anything, any amount of discomfort and suffering, just to avoid becoming what she most represented in a human being – laconic, dull-witted and waiting to shed loathsome flesh for the promise of a life in the hereafter which, she already knew to the marrow, dwelt only in feverish imagination.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

WELL MET

Strange fruit, shape and

husks like the mottled

purple-white breasts of

small dying birds,

scattered on asphalt.

Running together,

death and

life in the avenue.

That we choose one

over the other,

fight like cancer to linger in

this place –

affirms daily the experiment.

To validate, rather than destroy -

whether with arms, words or

intention, the inviolate

right of our fellows -

procures delight in

earthly pleasures on

nature’s own terms.

- Copyright 2009, Bela Johnson

(photo: Amanda Johnson)

NO PRISONERS

In conquering nothing,

Pain heals. In not

presupposing the

dance of the gods,

Magic happens.

I turn my back and

sunshine spills from the

darkest of skies.

- copyright 2009, Bela Johnson