The locusts were already there.

the Locusts were
Already There--

Knawing
on the new
Leaves,
the Tenderest shoots.

the melon vine
I planted in the Spring,
was no match
for the
Hungry Field
behind our House.

Townsfolk brought you Birds and
and you Burned them.
People brought you Dead things that had fallen from Wires,
and

you Cut them,
quietly, with Powder and
Dull kitchen Knife,
in the white shed
Behind our House.

Friends left you offerings on your Doorstep,
and you
Left them to Rot in the Field,
insects
Knawing round their Sockets.

(i found by accident that clove oil banishes your presence),

The smoke from that Field
was Rank,
heavy with the guilt of pollen and corner-dust,
Cloying, Meddlesome, Sweet

I would have Folded myself
into the Flames
for you.

but Mortar has turned to Quicksand
the bricks are falling
as bodies
Heaped.

blue Alchemy bone Powder
Grated,
is
Sieved.
(conch-shells, peacock feathers).

your
Poison,
smoke in my Blood,

Dissapates

Now.

I sit in a
White Room,
With a brand-new Crystalline
Heart,

Rainbow shadow Walls,
Feather-beaded,
Abalone,
and Cone.

Safe
within
Walls,

your Hold has
become
a Skeleton’s
hand
of Ice.

Melted into
a Once-Lattice,
an old Pain Scaffold,

New Invisible
Trace—

Non-Presence.

The locusts were already there.

The locusts were already there.

Landscapes in Stone (Paisajes en Piedra).

Time in the Rocks (Tiempo en las piedras).

An Eocene Landscape.

Remember this.

Remember this
The clicking, intermittent,
of the electric heater,
the ringing of wind-chimes on the porch,
that have been ringing for days now,
like cowbells rung frantically over the dark plains.

Our house used to sit on the edge of town,
blank prairie, high-desert pressing in,

Here, I feel the wind outside,
through the steam of bath-water on the inside pane,
The window has frosted over, the streetlight shines like a star,
I am happy and round in candlelight,
unsure of the future,
set on a precipice, like an unknowing child.

(reading Colette, drinking rose cava, 3 candles lit (lux perpetua…)

I hear the wind chimes shrieking from my warm white single bed.

I think this was the hawk that chase left on our doorstep as a strange homecoming present. He found it on the side of the highway, where it had maybe fallen from the electrical wires overhead. He had been out jogging, and was kind enough to explain the gift, before I stuck my head, full, into the black plastic bag. Enterprising Sam figured out a way to remove the beautiful wings, and hung them, framed on our wall. He left the body of the bird in the field next to our house. I iwsh he could find the poem he wrote about the hawk, because it was beautiful, and I remember seeing the color gold when I read it. spring, 2009, marfa, tx

brine

1.
memories are cobblestones;

like teeth in the earth.

they come at us from four sides of consciousness:
as the embedded thing in mud,
as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain,
as the smoke from the distant storm,
as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rises from the plain.

2.
adobe houses have a tendency to cluster themselves together wetly in storms.
the lashes of rain darken even the red dust under trucks and rusted car shells.

iron and creosote hang heavy in the air as
metallic wet steel wool
coagulates inside the larger particles of storm wind,
nestled into its made nest.

wet brine of a West Texas afternoon,
breath of the backyard through the open window, reading quietly,
chicken stock bubbling on the stove.

copyright Elizabeth Griswold 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

prism 2

crossed green blades curl under
the soaped fabric of morning air:
the traced green lace
of evergreen branches hangs down.

sirens and train whistles break
the washed swath of sideways wind,
as the round bells of birdcalls
ring silver in the lemon-colored air.

(i am weary today), content to
watch the world as fractured slivers of yellow and green light:
splintered into a charcoal geometry of off-square lit windows, wire fence rungs,
and the small-mesh kaleidescope of an open screen door.