By Lauren Napier
Reading Maps
There are things about my fingers that i used to know better
Because they touched maps more often
i used to know what an inch was
Based on the length of my own thumb:
Tip of my thumb to the joint
He used to know the map as well as the palm of his hand
The distance between joint and nail tip
that marked 500 miles in his rearview
500 miles closer to the ever-moving destination
tonight : there
tomorrow : there
And Here never being a sure point
ever-treading beneath his tires
He used to know the map as well as the palm of his hand
before he stopped looking at his fingers
and seeking the horizon of the what’s next
**
Lady Justice
In this town, Justice does not wear a blindfold
Untethered by a cloth of mere thread
She can see the pleas of both meek and bold
So Her gaze, rightly so, inspires great dread
The limbs of folly and the whims of humans
Subliminal threads of greed and Gold
not much avoids her earthly sermons
Her judgements they are bought and sold
Here she stands of stone in the desert wind
Lording over a dusty dry land
Not much remains in the soil of her kin
But civil war costumes at her left hand
A land forgotten and asking just to blossom
Within Justice‘s parched and marble pale bosom.
**
yeah…
Nine goldfinches flitted about the feeder
Their song interlacing with the waves in the bay
Salt on the porch furniture slats
Salt along a cheekbone
As I went to make soup
The rim of the colander was exactly the width of a chickpea
Making a wooden spoon an impossible instrument for transferring garbanzos
from stove to pot
And the holes of the strainer were too big to hold the alphabet
T’s and i’s falling uncrossed and undotted toward the drain
As a gasp of loss is too big to be held by a body’s frame
Letters and oxygen both struggle to stay inside
Today I learned that there are no kites sold on the islands of Hawaii
Volcanic winds indifferent to their course and flight
I thought about how colorful carry-ons from the mainland could inspire jealousy in children’s eyes
And tears fell from mine as
the goldfinch greedily squawked at the crow with a beak filled with shrimp tails:
The neighborhood trash
“If you pulled it out, you can toss it back in.”
The sea is a cyclical thing
A gasp without exhalation is taken
silenced by a grey-skied exhale
A stifled oroboros
Heavy with a rift in her heart
A pebbly beach
free of sea detritus
and a volcanic shoreline
full of colors in flight
Would be a welcomed exchange
To see you again in tomorrow’s night.
**
An elegy for renamed lands
I long to know the sound of cracked mud spoken in the land’s native tongue
speckled pink with turquoise for eyes
blue stone birthed when water mingled with earthly tears
ever-changing mirroring the hues of the earth a reflection of the changing temperament of humans
laden with the excessive saliva produced every time the land has been renamed
these bastardizations are mispronounced
Tread upon
the saliva that shifts from the inside of one cheek to another
Veiny flash glistening with a gasp
cocked head
as the tire bumps the thud ignored wholly
30 miles later
3 1/2 hours passed
perhaps
it’s 2:02 there’s a pheasant on the side of the road
Route 2
Has two white lines proving a protective boundary
cast by the county planner
salted in winter reinforcing the lines
wings outstretched catching the last of the days light
the last of the preserved feathers
the fingertips of the
Of the sun’s rays almost as thin as the narrow primary
dying dry dead
once the lands shone proud under their rightful names
Glottal stops empowered in buttes
canyons and chasms
and then the snow started to fall
cleansing
Erasing nature’s spoiled Canvas
feather pressed between the pages of the atlas spit upon thumb and forefinger
moistly turning the pages
Tires moving forward
Memory and feather preserved
**
whatever is in a name?
Strange barren terrain
Absent of a flag
Shall not remain unnamed for long
For land cannot be mapped until it is claimed
Is not found until it is seen by human eyes
Topographical existence upon flimsy paper legitimizing the physical
Paper made from the trees that sit upon the land in question
The land questioned
The question of how can anyone own the land
Is there a contract written in cloud wisps
Bequeathing grains of sand and blades of grass
To the careless undersigned
Who has become the witless undertaker
For the undertaking
Man wields his pen at
Mother Earth
A convoluted inversion of Oedipus’ plight
The lain and the slain at his feet
Metal ballpoint tip – cold and sterile against the living paper
Ink scratching the texture
Skyscrapers pierce the sky
Fingernails scrape skin
The paper dissolves in a summer rain storm
Crumbled in the branches’ fingers
And offered to the omniscient sky
Fates sealed
Time elapsed
Earth warming with a slowly boiling shame
Of being convinced
Someone else could be her steward
Glaciers melting in her angry gaze
She longingly whispers to those who used to tread here
Those who honored the space surrounding
Instead of trampling
Who moved as a part of the seasons and wind
Rather than rooting moving feet and setting themselves apart
Layering cement over the soil
But a whisper is hard to hear over the landscape‘s swan song
That plays in harmony with mankind‘s reveille
*******
Lauren Napier is a multi-disciplined artist from Washington State. You can find her on tour or on twitter @punkrockdoll