Morrie Greene
under therobinbone seaa dot
a spot
a blot
of brownandwhite
children
sent
by tallow words on
vinegar wind
grow
from the sand and silt
in a wormwood womb
under the maypole
under the robinbone seahyenas of a watery world
give them suck - moonstruck
milk and manna
give them resurrection
in the fishy depths
birdmen, longtailed swallows,
and Neptune's darlings
are their playthings
thererockfish eyes... guardians
streaming seaweed
their wet nurse
sphinx
watches with
unblinking eye
as
salted snowflakes
fall
like plummeting fears
(orwasit tears?)the world's gentle wound
they are,
flailing, grumbling,
reveling, swimming
in the season
of death and rebirth
in the depths of their forgotten freedom,
in their windcombed algaed bedunder the maypole
under the robinbone seaa dot
a spot
a blot
of brown and white children,
transplanted
grown tall and long and strong
scuttle and swim in
this hallowed house,
this strange and holy house,
this foster home away from home
till ... soon, very
soon now...the Saharas of man will
groan and roar
and leap and
sleep
tight-lipped in Valhalla,
the vast and lofty hall of Deaththen shall
earth's gentle wound
rise up
from under the maypole
from under the robinbone sea
to spit
in the dead eye of man
and
demand
inheritance
due...
legacy of earth's
gentler handhalos and Eve's
breast homephosphorescence
and
the robin's
bone...
Bio:
Morrie Greene’s day job is teaching 3rd graders in a small city in Texas. She is the author of several chapbooks, Poetic Passion, Search Inside, Reaping in a Wild Garden, and the most recent, For Your Head. Her “The Power of Woman” poem was chosen to be the theme of International Women's Media Festival March 8, ‘99 on Austin’s and Houston’s Public Access TV and KO-OP radio. Ms. Greene has been published in Voices that Echo in Time (Beaver Press), Seven Southern Voices (Beaver Press), White Tail (Maverick Press), and Glass Cherry. She is working a new poetry book, The Other Side.
