Centering the House
"All night Kansas
the lungs of the continent
takes a sip of the galaxy
swirling stars and barbed wire
sofabeds and willows
books and doors banging open
signs disappear whole towns
ditch themselves in the countryside
I stir the coffee to center the house
the place our mothers and fathers
and theirs and theirs passed through
their aprons strung on telephone wires
this tunnel of wind this trial
makes trees throw back their heads
and hair on our arms stand up
we’re nothing but breath on its way through the woods"
Wyatt Townley
"All night Kansas
the lungs of the continent
takes a sip of the galaxy
swirling stars and barbed wire
sofabeds and willows
books and doors banging open
signs disappear whole towns
ditch themselves in the countryside
I stir the coffee to center the house
the place our mothers and fathers
and theirs and theirs passed through
their aprons strung on telephone wires
this tunnel of wind this trial
makes trees throw back their heads
and hair on our arms stand up
we’re nothing but breath on its way through the woods"
Wyatt Townley
The Breathing Field
Walking Water
"Between each vertebra
is the through line
of your life’s story,
where the setting sun
has burned all colors
into the cord. Step
over.
Walking Water
"Between each vertebra
is the through line
of your life’s story,
where the setting sun
has burned all colors
into the cord. Step
over.
Put on the dark
shirt of stars.
A full moon rises
over the breathing field,
seeps into clover and the brown
lace of its roots
where insects are resting
their legs.
shirt of stars.
A full moon rises
over the breathing field,
seeps into clover and the brown
lace of its roots
where insects are resting
their legs.
Take in the view.
So much is still
to be seen. Get back
behind your back, behind
what is behind you."
From The Breathing Field (Little, Brown and Co., 2002). Copyright © 2002 by Wyatt Townle
Walking Water
"Inside us the ocean
sways like a cradle
in which we rock rock
and are drawn like the tide
to the moon twice a day
we carry our water and it carries us
we are a good pail with legs
foot by foot on the turning
mountain of the world
water walking on the prairie
walking water on the road
up the stairs through a door
where the view rushes out of us
through the window to the woods
rushing water in the desert
rushing water in this chair
and that one you’re in
water walking
and what is solid is not at all
what we thought the rock
worn away by the rocking. "
Copyright © 2016 by Wyatt Townley. From Rewriting the Body (Stephen F. Austin Press, 2018). Originally published in Prairie Schooner.
So much is still
to be seen. Get back
behind your back, behind
what is behind you."
From The Breathing Field (Little, Brown and Co., 2002). Copyright © 2002 by Wyatt Townle
Walking Water
"Inside us the ocean
sways like a cradle
in which we rock rock
and are drawn like the tide
to the moon twice a day
we carry our water and it carries us
we are a good pail with legs
foot by foot on the turning
mountain of the world
water walking on the prairie
walking water on the road
up the stairs through a door
where the view rushes out of us
through the window to the woods
rushing water in the desert
rushing water in this chair
and that one you’re in
water walking
and what is solid is not at all
what we thought the rock
worn away by the rocking. "
Copyright © 2016 by Wyatt Townley. From Rewriting the Body (Stephen F. Austin Press, 2018). Originally published in Prairie Schooner.
Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as she shares her imaginative, magical, and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon. Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, from my heart and with my hands
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