Poetry Pause: Josephine LoRe — no trail to the fragments of your hair

Poem author: Josephine LoRe Poem title: no trail to the fragments of your hair Poem: a cento created from Patrick Lane’s Washita swans slide on that long river iris blades cutting through the last ice on the pond maples, their leaves red as spilled blood the doe’s eyes, curious, ask nothing of me horned owl meditates upon death on the yard pole what joy to sing a last song to the moon in the morning, the hummingbirds will line their nests with me staring at the water through the fretful wing of a dragonfly the barren earth is what I want, the coolness there the deep beyond the gossamer a bright pebble among discarded shells I bow down in the rain, modest, a brush stroke only sickness a vulture, a geier there is a flawed beauty in that other world the mist above the river hid the mountains there are only the old answers listen – I am a cup dropped on stone how the world dies and dies when we are torn trying to understand the contradiction of loneliness I touch the broken words, the forms mute swans flying out of the dawn the sea, a loneliness the privilege of despair, how it gathers as an oboe gathers the dawn the past gets worn down by idle use I create to keep my world whole a little longer some mornings the maple leaves fall and my heart has no dignity water slipping like years through my fingers things move through things in the desert, lichens eat my father’s stone at the speed of stars the ear of the sleeping cat turned toward quiet with intent the bronze bell, let rest for 50 years, the bronze needing to learn sound before the carved log could strike it a woman wanting to be seen, not easily, but well the pond’s perfect thoughts I sharpened my father’s axehead …. was I the blade or the stone? it is a terrible wanting, this being alive stillness of water, stillness of poetry the spirit leaves us slowly, forever it is the waiting I try to understand, the quietness of that like you, I have carried the sorrows washita End of Poem. Credits: Copyright © Josephine LoRe Originally appeared in The Cowichan Series (2019). Josephine LoRe is a Calgary writer whose words have been spoken on stage and interpreted through painting, music, and dance. She has been published in print and online in journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, England, and Japan with upcoming publication in China and India. Her Canadian publications include Prairie Journal and an upcoming publication in FreeFall Magazine. She has published two collections of poetry and photography, Unity and The Cowichan Series, a Calgary Herald Bestseller. She also has a flash-fiction piece in the Calgary Public Library's inaugural Short Edition, and her first short story, Cornflower was published in November 2019. Josephine completed a Maîtrise en Arts at l'Université de Rouen (France) and an Honours BA from the University of Toronto. She is currently working on a series of poems based on her parent’s birthplace in Sicily. www.josephinelorepoet.com