STRIDER - HJ Andrews Experimental Forest

STRIDER

~

Hard seed suspended over six wire legs
The strider creates a most playful
Wake as it sculls, leaps, skates
Across the river. At night branches lengthen
Plants increase in height-- and below air
Below transparent films of water
More atmospheres – upside down interiors
That we could float if we knew more of birth
Or death except sublime rehearsals
A body carries an extra heart
In each wing if it needs to go deeper
What is the smallest life in a great river
The wisest -- where the skipper stops to clean whiskered
Feet—little round shadows cast on dimpling water

--Sandra Alcosser

STRIDER
~

We might carry an extra heart
In each wing should we need to go deeper

What is the smallest life in a great river
The wisest -- where the strider cleans six whiskered
Feet—little round shadows cast on dimpling water

Hard seed suspended over six wire legs
The strider creates a most playful
Wake as it sculls, leaps, skates –

At night branches lengthen
Plants increase in height-- and below air
Below transparent films of water
More atmospheres – upside down interiors

That we can float when we know more of birth
And death except sublime rehearsal

Sandra Alcosser

RIPARIAN

~

If we wash our legs with frozen water
Watch it rill down hairy flesh -- oh the power
Of the body to refresh – lie down at night
Wake again among harebells and bees, lichen
Speckled boulders, mists of sweet white
Vanillaleaf-- if we cock our pollen hats
Like Leonardo da Vinci and sketch
Riffles come to nurse the thirsty
Rubble, we can lean back, sieve
Our tea among secretive rocks
Soak away the meanness
Of a year’s duplicity -- no one can reach
Us here—no human voice--
A river will gentle the loudest noise

--Sandra Alcosser

RIPARIAN

~

If we wash our legs with frozen water
Watch it rill down hairy flesh -- oh the power
Of the body to refresh – lie down at night
Wake again among harebells and bees, lichen
Speckled boulders, mists of sweet white
Goatsbeard-- if we cock our pollen hats
Like Leonardo da Vinci and sketch
Riffles come to nurse the thirsty
Rubble, we can lean back, sieve
Our tea among secretive rocks
Soak away the meanness
Of a year’s duplicity -- no one can reach
Us here—no human noise--
A river will gentle the cruelest voice

--Sandra Alcosser