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"On Contemplating Consciousness", "Missing" & "Such Winter Lies" by Mercedes Lawry



On Contemplating Consciousness


Open sky with whittled clouds

splintered by rain. A bitter tang

loops through ideas of matter

that shore up solitude. I’m dizzy

with concentric thoughts, framing myself

one way or another, in light or in shadow.

In search of a place for my lack

of faith, what lugs my sorrows along,

what tests my need for fit,

tongue and groove, hook and eye.


The drudge of January pushes me

inside the house, under the afghan

my mother made, a cloud of cream wool.

The lamp is always on, pooling around me

to make a cocoon. I should light some candles too,

for their tenderness.




Missing


Where are the birds?

Not among the still trees

iced and crystalline,

but asleep in the rules of winter,

slow heartbeats with no echo.




Such Winter Lies


such winter lies, the labored boughs

empty of birds, the wind, bitter

then convulsive a note disturbs

silence, high and unwitting

as if the dead had long memories


the carry of memory, stiff, garbled

at other times, extravagant, we twist

and turn, examine and decipher

some of it left behind


the solemn months where forgiveness

comes easy, isolation smoothes

what we hoped for and lost,

insects burrowed in glad sleep

words boiled down to letters, pause


such winter lies, the stubborn sky

vacant above drifts of gold leaves

and broken ferns an old grief

with no shadows furled beneath




Mercedes Lawry is the author of three chapbooks, the latest, In the Early Garden with Reason, was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner and she’s been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize. Her book, Vestiges, was just released by Kelsay Books.

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