“Pregnant Women Laying on the Riverbank” by Raymond Sewell
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Pregnant Women Laying on the Riverbank” by Raymond Sewell.
Pregnant Women Laying on the Riverbank
By Raymond Sewell
In the comfort of the sun
Every wind a sweet wind
Like the sound of water through cedar
In the comfort of the sun
Showing webs and fine hairs
Witnessing the divine
The riverine
Water sprites
Fantastic weather
An incoming message
Jumping emphatically
From body to body
The warming sun
Lgetu on branches
Kind gestures
Joy jumping emphatically
Infant like pursuits of the sun
Joy re-entering the atmosphere
Feathers drying in the sun
Joy entering the self in renewal
Water pleasantly engulfing you
In the presence of pregnant women
Laying on the riverbank
Basking in safety
The long legs of the sun walking
A message incoming
A picture of the sacred
A wand to your head
The sophisticated poet
The sapphic poet
Laundering romantic thoughts
At the curve of the river
To the curve of the river
To establish oneself in the sun
The divinity of being
The reverberation of birds flying
Like water spiders in the sky
The delicate light
Shaking like a veil
Like draped fabric
Long rainbow legs in spring
Springtide and spring shutter
Dying birch signalling lgetu life
Chewing on earthy things
In the presence of the biggest sun
Dynastic inheritance
Copper and water
Limb and leaf
Gradually letting go
Easing into memory
Easing into place medicine
Easing into the long legs of the sun
Tilling the ice
A short wandering poem
About new infirmity
Returning to a place you understand
To a swamp that slipped your memory
Followed by a train of skulls
Seasons opening
Thought relinquishing control
To be stunned in the open
To sit in static
To be webbed by the sun
In the presence of the matriarch
Mushrooming
Collecting and returning
While the sun tills the ice
Returning to the womb
Re-seeing entry light
Smoke dancing in a boiling sacred fire
It is about you
The riverine
Eyes digging like a badger
Holes filing with rain
A medicine boiling
A bushcraft learned and remembered
An elder settling into the sun
I stand in good relation
I file no grievance for life
My spirit is full
Seeing pregnant women laying on the riverbank
Through my eyes
1872
Cry
Cry like wind cries
Cry like loon cries
Cry for things lost and gained
Cry into the trees
Let down
Copyright ยฉ Raymond Sewell
Raymond Sewell is an l’nu poet, singer-songwriter, and English professor from Pabineau, First Nation, New-Brunswick.
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