The Moon

The moon blazes white
upon my quilt
turning night into day.
I cannot sleep with
its unblinking eye
wide open
in the February sky.

What does she see,
this farsighted moon,
this unprotected orb
of light?

My legs stirring like
sea anemones
under the blanket?

A child's voice adding to
the chorus of moans and cries
in an overcrowded Iraqi
hospital ward?

A couple married so many
years they hardly wake
to make middle-of-the night
love under soft, wash-worn sheets?

An elephant trumpeting its
final cry as the poacher's bullet
pierces its heart?

A woman placing her nipple
into the already-sucking mouth
of her hungry baby?

A star dying a lonely death
within a galaxy on fire,
swirling in space?

The moon sees all, tells nothing
and knows its place.

The silent observer
of life.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
February 8, 2004

Early Spring...a chant

The smell of rain
The greening grass
Red-breasted robins
with wet worms held fast

Winter's tight hold
loosened at last
Spring magic unfolds
And her circle's cast

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
March 26, 2004

Alone In the Woods...a song

Alone in the woods I sit.
By myself in the woods, it's bliss.
To know I am one with all that surrounds me,
I come home to this.

I am one with the oak.
I am one with the stone.
I am one with the birds that fly.
I am one with the moss.
I am one with the snail.
I am one with the clouds passing by.

Repeat first verse.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
May 1, 2004
Pt. Pelee National Park, Leamington, Ontario
(My first hike alone in ten years)

The 4th of July 2004

Stars and stripes forever
Rivers of blood run down the white of forgetfulness
Stars shine on the uncounted dead in Iraq
A midnight blue sky anchors each star in grief

Rivers of blood run down the white of forgetfulness
Picnickers clothe themselves in this symbol of American hubris
A midnight blue sky anchors each star in grief
Why do our people not weep?

Picnickers clothe themselves in this symbol of American hubris
They wave flags that the world now hates
Why do our people not weep?
I weep, and use their flag to wipe my eyes

They wave flags that the world now hates
Stars shine on the uncounted dead in Iraq
I weep, and use their flag to wipe my eyes
Stars and stripes forever

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
July 4, 2004

Winds of Change

I hear the wind before
I see it. Waves of
sound draw my eyes
skyward. Treetops dance
to its music while

trunks remain deaf to
the rhythm, clinging to the
security of their
roots.

Do I miss the pulsing
beat of change, content
to remain planted in
unmoving assumptions
that keep me rooted
to the spot?

Or do I raise my
eyes, my arms, my heart
and sway in unguarded
hope with those who
dare to dance, dare to
dream, dare to believe

that the winds of change
they are a blowin'
and our world is not
as it seems.

Listen,
listen to the
sounds around
you.

Look up not
down,

for the truth
is there, swaying
in the branches
overhead.

All that is
will be.
Nothing
Remains
the same.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
September 11, 2004
(visiting Mary White in northern Michigan)

They Sell More Than Gelato

Beside the
cash register,
across from
he high school,
stands a rack of
military recruiting
brochures.

Be all that
you can be, they
say. Yes, and
get sent to
Iraq, I say.

They don't all
go to Iraq, says
the owner.

Six weeks
later I
return.

Just to see if
the recruiting
brochures are
still here, I
say. Yes, they
are, says the
owner. I've been
an antiwar activist
for decades, I say.
They don't all go
to war, says
the owner.

I don't say
it but let just
one soldier
refuse an
order to go
to Iraq and see
what happens
then.

I don't
say it's bad
business to
put up stuff that
keeps regular
customers
away.

I don't say
you're naïve,
uninformed and
dangerous to the
vulnerable high
school students
who come to
your store.

I do say you
and I obviously
see things
very
differently.

I still
miss
their
gelato.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
October 19, 2004

Mary Oliver meets George W. Bush

Three days after the
election, I sit naked on
the toilet reading
poetry.

The owl on her
plush and soundless
wings rises above
the heads of old women
and young children
who will die in
door-to-door combat
in Fallujah.

The rain, smelling
of iron, drops on the
oil drills that replace
old growth trees, and
dusty roads that cut off
migratory paths used
for centuries.

Big-chested geese, in
the V of sleekest
performance fly over
children whose asthmatic
lungs struggle to breathe
polluted air while the
polluters take control
of the EPA.

The tin music of the
cricket's body hums
where cries of
tortured prisoners
fill the air in
secret prisons
across the globe.

The soft toad, patient
in the hot sand, surveys
Minuteman missile sites,
home of the potential
destruction of
the world.

Fat, black, slick,
dolphins galloping in
the pitch of the waves
try to avoid the US Navy
sonic blasts that can
blow out their
ear drums.

The carrot, rising in
its elongated waist,
is pulled from fields
owned and operated by
business men in corporate
board rooms, not the
farmers who planted
them.

The blouse of the
goldenrod grows apace
with my friend's uterine
cancer, diagnosed late
because
she has no
health insurance.

White six-pointed
snowflakes cover
lies
that pile higher and
higher as day follows
night and four more years
stretch endlessly
before us.

Mary Oliver with
her keen eyes and
articulate heart
meets
George W. Bush,
a man bent on the
subjugation of
people, places and
things.

Reverence for
Meets
power over.

What elastic minds and
hearts we must have
to stretch between these
two polarities.

And what comfort
it is to know that
Mary Oliver will
touch humans
far longer than
George W. Bush
will kill them.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
November 4, 2004
Poetry fragments from What Do We Know by Mary Oliver (Da Capo Press: 2002

Quake, Tsunami Devastate Asia,
Reuters reports

The earth, burning
with the fever of
global warming,
kicks off her
blankets and
tries to find
a more
comfortable
position.

Sweat pours
from her brow
causing
tidal waves
that crush
everything
in their path.
80,000 people
die.

"I cannot live
like this,"
she cries.

Neither can
we.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
December 27, 2004



© 2004 Patricia Lay-Dorsey. Please use with attribution.