Sample Poems by Michele F. Cooper

Bird of Youth

New road comes around
when the trees take to falling,
a wagon's-width spread
among the forest trunks,
curling out of sight

like a green and purple rain-bird.

Sadie Does a Little Jig on the Long Road Home

She is walking down this two-lane,
   see?
And stepping fine along
   those double yellow lines.
Two-stepping, you might call it,
   side-stepping,
doing her little jig,
   trying to get where she's going,
moving 'round, but getting there,
   if you get me.

And she's singing, hear?
   Singing blues--the darkest blue.
You can do that,
   sure,
sing your heart out
   like there's no tomorrow,
not for you, anyway, not when
   you so down in the heels
you can't see your eyelids
   through the salt water-fall.

You can sing 'em high,
   she says,
send those low-down blues
   high as a kite,
high as the clouds up there,
   those big white ice-cream clouds
over the back hills,
   the far hills, back a bit,
not those wispy nothin's
   just overhead.

You see those ice-cream clouds,
   hear those blues,
and sing your eyes out
   till you get those babies
   up where they belong,
carrying your weighed-down baggage--
   all thousand pounds of it--
into a big, bountiful,
   flying aeroplane.

Not a real plane, mind,
   just a head-thought,
getting your sorrows into high gear,
   singing them out,
your big baggage blues,
   singing them
till you're gliding high,
   up where you wanted to be,
wanted to be always,
   always knew it, needed it, wanted to be there all the days--
   night-times, day-times--
night-times, too.

Sure, she wants those
   night-times, too.
Get on off'n this low-down runway
   and out the door.
Real far.
   Real high.
    Real fast.

The New Mare

She's a fast rider, Sadie,
willing to take the new mare
up-country, first day out.

Who does such damn fool things?

Will she never learn?
The mare might turn on her,
rear up,
throw her to the stony ground
and break her to pieces.

What makes her think the mare's ready
just because she's ready?

A mare wants tending,
raising, preening, feeding,
wants to know who's boss
before she takes up the saddle
and runs the field.

Who is she to chance the wild?