Three Poems by Lisa López Smith

 

The first rain

 

Friends,

medicine makers,

backyard alchemists,

anyone midwifing

a bit of hope into

the world—it’s been a steady

decline into dry season madness:

but listen, sister sun witch leans

towards June and the rainy-day

sorceress— clouds singing

of possibility: cheering 

cicadas chanting, drops dance

through the sky—

the soil awakening

like arms stretching 

slowly Sunday morning,

or a cat, yoga-like,

these months of sun

have stiffened our joints,

our fingers cracked and open,

until at last,

rain.

The earth speaks,

words of musty wild

imagination again, 

the first wildflowers’ heartbeats,

surrender, surround

all the good, the true, the beautiful:

it’s in the shout

of the prickly pear, luscious,

sprouting like fingers

on the hand of a nopal,

it’s in the lavender, oily and generous,

each stone and each fragment building

a wider circle, a longer table;

each new seed of requisite 

contentedness,

each blossom turning its face to the sun,

the shadows fall behind.

 

Seasick

Three days      on the boat

to get   over

the       unregulated   water movement

chaos    wobble, no side up   side

right, cockeyed wayside   

    drop

tipsy knees

stomach ear-eye,

    balance, slow

the timeless time

imperceptible   of the endless

ocean depths   and breadth

blues shades    of magnitude:

turquoise, mid night, deep

space without end

floating and filled with the wild

unexpectedly bright and hopeful:

the sea lion bawling

on the rocks;

the nimble elegance

of the pelagic sharks,

the gleeful slap of mobula

rays belly-flopping

on the surface.

Jump in—the water’s fine.

Back on shore,

stabilized—

   cars rumbling

when the pavement stumbles me

            now familiar   nautical drunken   

undulations—

((typical                      in shore leave sailors(

I can’t close    my eyes—

now I’m   seasick on land.

The Tule Tree

2000+ year old Ahuehuete tree in Oaxaca

 

Ridges of long-formed trunk:

root whales breaching from the ground,

long cool fingers of shade

caressing the ground,

dragon branch breathing down

green fire leaves,

and wavy seas of bark and edges—

sea foam knots, a spray of leaves;

there—a Virgincita entwined

within a niche, these branches

are lovers entangled in each other,

the hawk claws, hobbit holes, an orchestra

of wind, gentle sculptures curled through:

wide eyed stillness before the heartbeat

of the tree that remembers the Conquest,

Independence and Revolutions, the first

aeroplane and automobile and herbicide,

still,

resonance, two thousand years of

echoing bird song:

sparrows and wild canaries;

an egret’s sanctuary.

The tree is dying, but slow,

full of centuries-old stories,

creased, and wrinkled,

whispering,

Trust, above all,

the slow work

also unfolding in you.

Lisa López Smith is a shepherd and mother making her home in central Mexico. When not wrangling kids or rescue dogs or goats, you can probably find her working on her next novel. Her poems and essays have been published in over fifty literary journals and nominated for Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and the Pushcart prize. Her first chapbook was published by Grayson Books in 2021, and besides her non-writing related degrees, she is a graduate of Humber College's Creative Writing program.