Four Poems by Cristina M. R. Norcross

 

A Solar Eclipse Picnic

 

We left the quiet dark,

the espresso café with tiny cups

and chess board tables,

to venture into sunlight,

climbing a path to the open green

of Parliament Hill.

In the broad, bright sky,

kites were flashing their tails, 

winking at us.

Red and white blankets were spread out 

for barefoot picnics.

We brought our own luncheon feast,

snuggled side by side on the nearest bench.

 

I remember the wind 

whipping my hair into a frenzy,

napkins flying out of my hands,

an errant chip falling on the grass.

Absorbed in the conversation of 

what comes next,

what comes after Ottawa,

a solar eclipse shadow 

swept across the city like a giant condor.

We hardly felt time pass.

Finally, the jolt of a foreign, noonday chill

took our breath away,

as if these past 4 years had been swept up,

hidden inside the smouldering sun.

Unknown skies awaited us

on a different Parliament green,

on the other side of the ocean,

on the other side of now.

 

 

The Immigration Line 

(Croydon, London)

 

A slip of paper,

the hot September pavement,

a snake’s tail line of people

coiled around the corner,

I stare at the tube train platform.

 

A four-hour wait,

one stamp in my passport,

permission to work,

permission to stay.

 

The mother with 3 children dripping

from her sleeves,

drips sweat from her brow,

loses the energy to lose patience,

as they all start becoming amoeba-like,

melting tar on an endless highway.

 

We are an unwilling train 

on tracks seeming to go nowhere,

unmoving, swaying in place

in the sweltering sun.

I nibble on a granola bar

and a packed sandwich, 

quickly losing freshness.

 

To my left and right 

there is hidden hope amongst the weary,

the promise of a better job,

a better life.

I am simply choosing to be here,

married to a Brit,

waiting for adventure,

not fleeing anything,

feeling guilty for my sweat.

 

 

Sacred Stones of Loss

 

I distract myself,

counting the number of circles

in the room—

coffee mug rims,

a ceiling fan spinning,

tarnished brass doorknobs,

a mirror in the hallway.

I exist within

the white space of absence.

There is comfort in shapes.

 

Overlapping circles of memory

stack themselves

into a tower of different 

decades, geographies,

individual moments

with my father.

I see the glass fish tank from the 70’s

and the smaller globe of guppies beside it.

We spent hours watching life swim in lazy circles.

I see the foreign landscape of haybales

when we moved from New York.

The air was fresh and quiet,

a gust of wind replacing honking horns.

I remember you picking up a gingko leaf

and saving it for my science project.

Evening walks became a quest 

for new plant species.

 

Each memory is now a small, sacred stone.

I hold the roundness, 

my upturned palms in prayer, 

giving thanks

for what remains.

 

 

You Are Earth

 

You are not living on Earth.  You are Earth.  
Nature is not matter only.  She is also spirit.

—Carl Jung

 

You are the pulse of the soil’s veins.

You are the wriggling earnestness of the worm.

Water shoots up your stems.

You stand tall, leaves fanning out,

a glistening, life force energy. 

 

A connected universe of intricate patterns,

human, plant, mammal, fish—

our hands embrace all elements

as we exist from root to tip

within branch song,

within the river’s melody.

 

We hold life in our arms,

in our palms,

in our open wound hearts.

 

You are every star’s last burst of light.

You are cosmos and ocean floor creature.

You are the smallest cell that begins 

with nothing but the will to expand 

and grow exponentially.

 

Your feathered form

once came from another land.

Your soul’s birthplace waits for your return to source.

Until that sacred reunion,

let the clouds tremble with your thunder,

let the grass know you feel every brush of skin.

Feel the world, hold tenderly the globe.

 

Cristina M. R. Norcross lives in Wisconsin and is the founding editor of the online poetry journal, Blue Heron Review.  Author of 9 poetry collections, a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, and an Eric Hoffer Book Award nominee, her most recent collections are The Sound of a Collective Pulse (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Beauty in the Broken Places (Kelsay Books, 2019).  Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Poetry Hall, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review,Muddy River Poetry Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others.  Her work also appears in numerous print anthologies.  Cristina has helped organize community art/poetry projects, has led writing workshops, and has hosted many open mic readings.  She is the co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day.  Find out more about this author: www.cristinanorcross.com

Cristina M. R. Norcross
Founding Editor, Blue Heron Review
www.cristinanorcross.com

Twitter: @firkinfiction