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SUSAN TERRIS

Whisper of Time

Yesterday/February

Playing Schubert's Unfinished
Plum and camelia
Two flutes
Nine-bar scherzo
Silver charms/charm of flesh
Hum of a winged secret

                ∞

Today/March

Wind and rain rip
Willow's yellow-green
Ruby-throat/anxious robin
Chirk and twee a safe nest
Straw with twig
This is where hope rises

                ∞

Tomorrow/April

Lilt of Monday morning
The unfinished a promise
Melody of jasmine and pink
Plant new seeds
Here the heart/the delicate wing
Lifts and lifts

 

Tick of Time

Yesterday/June

Finding Some Kind of Blue
It’s cherry season
Cool trumpet
G minor and A augmented
Body calls/phone calls
Occam’s razor cuts

                ∞

Today/July

Fog mantles all
Its touch prickles flesh
In the Douglas fir
Possum screech/raccoon claw
Quiver of needles
The unearthly stirs earth

                ∞

Tomorrow/August

Thirst of Thursday
Wine/the echo of whine
No fresh Bings only pits
How to hold on
To love without rings
To a house with no roof

 

Crack of Time

Yesterday/October

Listening to Brahms' Fourth
A crackle of fallen oak leaves
French horns
Absent flutes
Graven image/cradle image
Secret days untwinned

                ∞

Today/November

Shadowed woodchopper
Churns its savage teeth
Cypress/oak/elm
Lullabied into dense
Marl and mulch
Is this how the world ends

                ∞

Tomorrow/December

Silence of a cold Sunday
No Brahms or psalms
No apples or fluted stones
No gravity
Here the crack/the churn only
Disconnect lost love  

 



Susan Terris’s most recent book is Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press, 2013). She is the author of six books of poetry, fifteen chapbooks, and three artist’s books.  Journal publications include The Southern ReviewDenver Quarterly, The JournalNorth American Reviewdiode, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers from Field appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI.  She’s editor of Spillway Magazine. Her chapbook Memos was just published by Omnidawn. A poem from this book, “Memo to the Former Child Prodigy,” which appeared in the Denver Quarterly, has been selected by Sherman Alexie for Best American Poetry 2015. More at http://www.susanterris.com.