A Feather

They call us the survivors,
 
persuade us to collude with metaphors
of strife and overcoming
 
that cast remission as a victory
of our own making,
 
bright with the prospect of a
permanent peace –
 
as though we have been given
a new body, a new life, not the old one
re-visited
 
with the old skirmishes,
the old illusions and a new burden
of gratefulness.
 
There is no lasting truce.
Light returns, and shade
its faithful follower.
 
We are not heroic, merely hungry
for safety,
 
knowing survival is a feather
on a breath.
 

Elisabeth Rowe

published in collection, Timewise, 2019, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-84-7

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Thin Air

We are resting side by side,
but you are somewhere far away
where the air is Himalaya-thin
in the labyrinth of your lungs.
 
Your words snatch and tug
like prayer flags in the wind;
no breath to spare for
murmured consolation.
 
Rope up, my friend, for the climb;
put one breath in front of another.
I’ll be your Sherpa, shoulder your pack,
cut footsteps in the snow.
 
My eyes blur like melt-water;
yours are already fixed
on the icefalls ahead, the gully
and the impossible summit.
 

Elisabeth Rowe

published in collection, Timewise, 2019, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-84-7

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Rapids

Remember
that day on Snake River
 
the Colorado sun
slung heavy
the river sheened as glass
 
the glass buckling
the boat plunging into rough
 
bucking the crazy crests
smacking the hollows
 
the whole river
gathering itself
and heading for the cliff
 
someone screaming
‘Lean in! Lean in!’
 
as the flimsy rib
slams into rock
ricochets
 
twists away
down a long chute
of chastened water
 
they called it ‘Oh Shit Rock’
but we had yet to learn
how there is always
 
something lying in wait
to trouble the natural flow
of things
 

Elisabeth Rowe

published in collection, Timewise, 2019, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-84-7

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Winter Wisdom

Write your winter wisdom
when the words run dry,
you told me.
 
What do you expect?
Some kind of silver weathered word-flow,
life-bytes of a linguistic surfer?
 
I’m telling you, that stuff
is for the birds, who, if they have any sense,
have flown to somewhere warm.
 
All I have to offer is a grey head-space
obliging with bad habits, blotched capacities,
bent expectations.
 
Old age is the punishment
for growing old.
No spring greens for the body,
no hey nonny-no
the lover and his lass long gone.
 
Leaf-fall turns to loam and feeds the roots
that shoot to light and air,
but don’t you see how all renewal
is reserved for youth?
 
Winter wisdom is the past set solid,
the future below ground,
the present splintered
with survival.
 
Feed it to the birds, and ask me
about summer
while I can still remember it.
 

Elisabeth Rowe

published in collection, Timewise, 2019, Oversteps Books,
ISBN 978-1-906856-84-7

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