Sample Poems by Ellen Chavez Kelley

To A Man Carrying Wood
Chiang Mai, Thailand, 2006

You look as young as those boys who fought
in Colombia, Sri Lanka and Sudan.
On your shoulders you hold
an entire forest cut from scars.
For all I know, you have no memory
of how many fell or how swift came
the slash and thinning. I only know
that you wear a shirt pitted
with bullet-sized holes, that it hangs
like a loose bandage on your chest,
that you seem to balance wood
with the muscular faith of twelve
monks chanting. You carry, drop,
hurry back for more, place what remains
on your shoulders the way some soldiers lift
fallen comrades from the field
then deliver them to their uncertain rest.

The Crow Speaks

On behalf of myself and my
dark-winged cousins Corvidae
I would like to adjust
your view of us, perched
on fences and cornstalks in gloomy
threes and twos, caw- cawing the blues.
For eons you've assigned us
the drabbest of capes. To you, we flap
prophetic, carry messages of doom.
But we've done much more than that,
though I admit our call's a rude and rusty croon.
Have you not heard how we danced
around a mountain's fire and guided
wandering spirits past the moon?
How we led sparks of the departed
to their proper place among the stars?
Yes, we've served you humans well.
So please don't assume
that our role is but a shadow.
There's brilliance hidden
in even the most minor tune.

Newborn Daughter

You raise a wrinkled fist, first
defiance, then curl into me and drink
your fill. Through the open window
glass chimes clink like nomad's bells.
We doze, then enter a dream of heat
and sand, travel over scalloped dunes, past
palm-lined pools until wind shifts
and lifts us back to our chair in the nursery.
We wake, but the long dream of our
journey together, now begun,
will carry us to countless,
unimagined worlds.

Photo of My Children in the Rain
They spin to meet my camera and every shining
beckons- their faces, storm-slicked jackets,
the gleaming wooden deck. Wind unlocks
the clouds' leaden chest, scatters gems
in their hair, on their lashes. The sun unclasps
its dark cape, casts shadows
like beacons streaming from the toes
of their galoshes. My children laugh,
march on their new, longer legs with a mix
of triumph and surprise. I have bundled
them against the cold yet their delight
will not be contained. It fizzes
and crackles between them. My daughter,
umbrella at her side, moves forward to meet
the next shower while her brother, hands
wrapped tight around a treasure he's found,
waits for a sign. Later they will splash
and stomp in puddles, do the work
of children which is play,
which is absolute presence. Together
they will step into their glassy reflections
seeking what we all seek: broken bits
of themselves reassembled, familiar,
yet transformed in this newly-washed world.

Seeing You At the Outdoor Cafe
for John

On this day everything has changed.
You sit alone reading the newspaper,
salad bowl pushed aside.
I stop and let the quiet joy
of having found you here
live in me awhile.
Watching you is my sweet secret.
I say hello, gently.
You turn around, your Ben Franklin bifocals
glinting in the sunlight.
Your hair and brows have gone
gray and white as waves in a storm.
I was just thinking about you-
I'm so glad you're here, you say.
When I sit, you take my hand,
your look pure love and longing.
I think you are going to cry.
Though I know why, I ask,
What is it, dear?
You shake your head and smile,
loving me so privately
here in this public place
that I teeter on the point.
This moment holds all our years,
triumphs and tragedies charting
the choppy course of ordinary days,
the way we laugh hard at jokes
and ache with the blessing of our children.
Calendars are linear musings
having little to do with us.
Our hearts break together.