"Four Elements", "Night Muse", & "Tides of the Body" by Anne Whitehouse

FOUR ELEMENTS

for Magi Pierce

Air, fire, water, earth: each element 

matched with a cardinal direction.

Air with the East. The inhale is inspiration,

expanding breath, a promise not yet embodied.

Fire with the South. Breath at the apex, 

burning with creation and destruction.

Water with the West. Movement and memory,

the sinking sun, the passing of life.

Earth with the North. Emptiness and eternity,

the ground underfoot, cessation of breath.

The exhalation is the letting go.

The emptiness is what is left.

Think of an ice cube lying

on the ground on a neutral day.

The fire of the focusing mind

fed by the air of the breath

softening ice into water,

melting and moving,

unlocking memory 

petrified to habit.

NIGHT MUSE

for Marna Williams

I sat listening to you 

play “Moonlight Sonata” 

with the lights off

because you knew the music by heart. 

The room was narrow, 

paneled in pine

with one wall of windows.

Outside were pine woods 

growing down a steep slope, 

inky black below the night sky. 

Inside, flickering candle flames

reflected in the window.

You sat at the piano,

your back to me,

your light-brown wavy hair

catching the candlelight.

I closed my eyes and let

the music fill me

with inexpressible longings,

the possibility of happiness

imprisoned inside me

for its own protection.

After the music,

we discussed art and literature.

I remember your breathless way 

of speaking,

the words tumbling 

in excitement,

the quality of your mind.

Fifty years later, 

you say you never knew 

the miseries I fled from.

TIDES OF THE BODY

Breath, shape-changer,

the organs gently swaying in their fascial hammocks

like the flora and fauna of an undersea world—

the yellow of the small intestine, 

deep coral of the liver, green bile duct,

pancreas the color of the ocean floor.

Blood circulating through arterial rivers

in an endless loop.

Gently I placed my fingers 

over the openings of my ears.

The sound of my breath inside my throat

was like the echo in a seashell,

ever-present, softly audible.

I tuned out the world for a moment

so I could listen.

Anne Whitehouse is a writer. She is the author of five poetry collections—The Surveyor's Hand, Blessings and Curses, The Refrain, Meteor Shower, and Outside from the Inside, and four chapbooks—Bear in Mind, One Sunday Morning, Surrealist Muse, and Escaping Lee Miller. She is the author of a novel, Fall Love, as well as short stories and essays. Of Fall Love, First Draft's reviewer reported, Whitehouse's "poetic handling of language and of sensuous detail is superb... She conveys powerfully the cruel effects of all those coincidences of life." Radcliffe Quarterly said of The Surveyor's Hand that the poems "combine a precise intelligent observation with a personal voice and sensibility."

She has also written short stories, essays and feature articles, and book reviews.