Water Poem

(May, 1987)

In February, months before the ice goes out

I go to the lake shores and call to the water

(water is a harp string plucked and sounding

washing a summer shore clear of mist)

I go to the lake shores and I call to the waters

mourning the frozen flowage, the aching

of ligaments, bone marrow, viscera

stiffened and dried by months of rattling

steam heat.

(water is my flute music,

tumbling over pebbles in a narrow brook)

I call to my monthly bleeding,

my mother's curse, this flowing, this collecting

in ponds, lakes, puddles.

My bleeding is not a curse,

this flowing through storm gutters,

over rocks in streams,

rolling down thousands of miles of rivers.

(a pipe organ,

surf crashing on a lonely beach)

In February, the lakeshores are frozen and gray

Rainbows sparkle from distant sun on new mounded snow.

Aspen Mountjoy, (c) 1987