Sample Poems by Carol Gloor

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Broken

The bird is not sitting right,
too low in the frosted grass,
something broken: his green black wing
or iridescent neck or hidden feet,
his eyes blank staring at the hedge
he will never reach.

When a hunted deer's sharp hoof
kicks a California mountain lion
just right to break his jaw,
he slinks to rock crevasses,
his eyes empty
as this bird's, waiting.

The sun rises, spewing light
on the cheap daffodils by the hedge,
on the entire fallen world,
the only one we have,
on the breast of this dying bird.

---

Luke 24: 36-42

He could not give up the flesh.
In the moments before we leave forever
we want to say what he did:
I have hands, feet, bones; touch me,
and is there anything for breakfast?

We are tethered to tubes,
nails hammered hard,
spear in our side, soon
to pass through, but still
this is my body,

with the scar on my hand from the bike accident,
the lungs shredded with chemo,
the broken left foot never quite healed,
but still all I have ever known:
this is my body.


If I rise, let it be not
as a ghost, no metaphor
for new life; please something
like this body, some flesh,
something I can understand.

---

Deer in Town

Shotguns blast the gray air, shatter
the skeletal trees of the state park forest.
Some deer come to town knowing
it is safe, vanishing in our small,
scattered woods, seen only if they move.
Two does nuzzle down a hill, eating
whatever is still green, shining noses
and flippant tails sometimes
giving themselves away.
My stare locks on one doe's
huge eyes. She is not afraid,
a fellow creature gazing back
for one instant.

---

Jonquils

The water always begins us,
soaks our bulb skin,
swelling us tight.

What can we do but push
through winter death:
grey grass, windblown sticks.

We must reach for light
to sprout our yellow trumpets,
golden collars, to release
our first fragrance
in the few days of our life.

They call us Narcissus,
but were there a pool next to us
we would not bend
to see our reflection.
We do not come for ourselves, for you.
We have no choice,
which is why you love us.

---

Voyager Enters Deep Space

We launched her almost forty years ago
with pictures of us: naked, hands raised
in the universal greeting hello.

She carried a golden disk etched with
Beethoven's 5th, No Satisfaction, tones of didgeridoos,
with voices saying hi in Swahili, Chinese, French.

She carried with her a map marking
where we come from, all nine planets,
an arrow shot from the third one out.

We launched her to slingshot
around Mars, Neptune, Uranus. For billions of miles
she sent back pictures of exploding light.

We know now she's left our small system,
bombarded by strange particles, a human artifice
drifting through dark infinity, bearing the real message:

We are lonely.