Fall/Winter 2016



Chad Reynolds

ERASURE SUITE MADE FROM SONGS SUNG AT A UNIVERSALIST CHURCH ON EARTH DAY

 

     Garden Song
row this garden
mulch it
make it inch
these seeds        
below the rain

stones dream
to own time

grain, nature’s body
music, the land
your season a prayer

[chorus]

mother, give old crow
eyes as free as

[chorus]

 

     Ox of Ra
out of morning
an evening

maybe the sun
is rain to see

out of day
maybe some corner, waiting

look through other eyes
on other days

what to do—
it’s all a dream

your dead land
tired and broken, your tongue

what you do
will pain

believe the wind
in the window, like a moth

Ox of Ra,
believe it

o long time, be
a short time

 

     O Low Way, Away
they opened a place
out of a place

away away
away

I aimed to feed
a mule the place

away away
away

it pigs and crops
that down road

o low way
away

so green my life
my scalloped town

away away
away

alone the wind
corners wind with wind

away

close to dust I hear
talking in the air

away away
away

always close
to never, away

I die around
the sky, away

away away
away

 

     Deportees
in the dumps
they border
their money
again

goodbye my names—
when will you be my own?

father made fruit trees
till they died

some wanted out and
they chase us like thieves

your hills and
your plains died
and we died
both died

fire over our friends
like leaves

if we grow big
our good
leaves no names

 

     Land O Land
the new stream,
that high end-
less sky below

I followed the sands
of deserts, around me
a voice was made

the sun fields clouds
lifting this land

a sign on the sign
said nothing and

the shadow of relief
stood hungry, asking
nobody walking
nobody living

 


Chad Reynolds is the author of six poetry chapbooks, the co-founder of Short Order Poems, and the co-founder of Penny Candy Books, a new children's book press with a mission to publish books that represent the diverse realities of the world we live in, both at home and abroad. He lives in Oklahoma City with his wife and two sons.

 


 

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