Elemental

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison,

Study of Nest (1994)

Note: I have linked this to Magpie Tales, as my Child of Earth poem does connect with the notion of a nest/nesting. I took the liberty of putting all four of my "element" poems on this post, along with some of our photos to perhaps make 160 lines of poetry seem less pretentious. Really, I just wanted to share these with Mag followers, as you have meant so much to me. Hope you enjoy Child of Earth, and Winds, Fire, and Waters, if you haven't read them. I think it fair to say they do reflect a rather intense study of my nest! 

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Child of Earth

From rock-ribbed, misty meadows

Where horned sheep safely grazed

While myriad solitary shepherd boys

Gazed heavenward and dreamed

Of a mythic distant land where each

Might claim a bit of his own ground

And work it by his leave, unfettered,

My forebears sallied forth in strength.

Not to Plymouth Rock or to Virginia,

But to Penn's luscious woodlands

And acres of soil so dark and fertile

One might well try to cook and eat it

Rather than bother planting crops.

Indeed, traditional grains thrived there,

But so, too, did old prejudices, pressures
And new, unsettling competitive stresses.

So my people took the Great Wagon Road

Up the storied Shenandoah Valley, onward

Through lofty gaps and carved gorges,

Turning down at length toward the knob

That still marks the way into Carolina,

And southwest to an open, rolling land

Described to them by other Deutsch men
Who had ventured to the Catawba River.

Along the South Fork, they farmed, milled,
Raised corn, fodder, hogs, sheep, cows,

Laying hens, turkeys, and draft horses, all

Tended by Lutheran sons and daughters.

Some learned to work the supple clay,

Turning and burning mugs, jugs, crocks,

Thriving in the new world they made;

Few chose to roam further westward.

Yes, am I a child of the Piedmont,

With its clod-strewn plowed fields,

Lush pastures and cattle grazing

Their way through slow, lazy days

Of hazy, stifling humidity and flies.

My blood is the color of its clay,

My heart kneaded and shaped

And fired in a groundhog kiln.

But my soul longs for mountains,

For ancient, resting Grandfather

And Black Mitchell, the backbone;

For cloud-shrouded Clingman's Dome

And Mount Le Conte draped in snow;

For mighty Pisgah and blue ridges,

And our beloved Craggy Pinnacle,

Dressed in Catawba Rhododendron.

There I am at peace, high above

The crucible in which I must live,

Giving myself away, word by word,

Ever pining for Appalachian solace.

Child of Winds

In my age of innocence, I freely embraced

The trades, riding a soft, sweet westerly.

Lovingly caressed at first by my friend,

Pulled in by the promise of exotic shores,
Naive in the ways of winds and tide,
I was swept along, unaware of danger
Building behind me, swelling water spout,
I was unprepared when it went cyclonic.

Laid waste, I swallowing bitter dregs.

My bloodshot, tear-stained eyes left me

Blinded; that twister was but an outlier

Of a raging, pounding apocalyptic storm.

The fearsome wall hit me, shoveling all

Before it, plowing furrows across

The fragile farmland of my young heart,

Ripping holes in my woven cotton soul.

I saw the decimation, seeming random,

Slaughter of ships great and humble,

Shattered, hardwoods splintered,

Pine laid low, so many matchsticks

Scattered about in the tempest's fury.

I was carried up, up, and out, anon:

Spewed forth and falling, screaming,

Thinking wind itself to be my enemy.

I dared not dream as I plummeted

That I might survive, live to sail

Again, though not so carefree,

But here I am at the windlass...

My heart flies high on the foremast,

Double-sheet bend secure, exposed,

Slapped by every passing fancy,

Be it breeze, gust, gale, or typhoon.

Still, the knot holds, and I endure,

My colors showing honest agony,

Even as they are whipped to and fro,

Child no more, I fetch yonder horizon.

Child of Fire

Wrought as winter's bright embers

Still glowed warm in the fireplace,

Refined in a hot red-clay forge,

Hammered flat on the harsh anvil

That defined my teenage years

And tempered quick by tragedy,

I became hard, cold, with an edge,

But I still know what it is to burn.

I am known to boil over, bubbling

Like so much gurgling pastel mud

In perking Yellowstone paint pots.

I have shot steam-spray rockets

Skyward, a brash young geyser,

With irregular, happy abandon.

A simmering, stewing sot, I am,
Quick to erupt, absolutely deadly.

I have spat napalm, shat fire alive,

Pissed blazing kerosene streams
Upward in raging incendiary arcs

Onto unsuspecting heaps of tinder,

And I have felt scalding salt-tears

Scorch my sooty, puffy cheeks

As I wept over beloved bridges

I had wantonly sacked and ashed.

 I can be an inferno incarnate,

With tin dipper melting in hand,
Trying and failing ever to fetch

Just one healing, quenching sip

From the waiting, loving pool

Which longs to come to my aid
As my soul pops and crackles:

Son of flames, I am consumed.

Child of Waters

What magnetic moonlit tidal tug

Is it that pulls me off beam,

Sends me downstream, reeling,

Ever descending, rushing through

Rock-strewn, sand-barred creeks

Into gushing, swelling rivers...

Floating, fallen-timber rudderless,

Swept headlong to deeper waters?

Perhaps an accident of birth--

My winter-born sister Alaska

Speaks of liquid crystal, flowing:

Iron-brittle, creeping glaciers,

Gold-flecked beds, melt-floods,

Plowing, charging, galloping...

Fulminant meeting engagements

In resilient sounds and shallow seas.

Summer-born Hawaii whispers

Of fearsome typhoon and tidal wave,

Lead-white snow-capped peaks

And rain-drenched emerald slopes,

Vertigo-high waterfalls plunging,

Teeming pools and rivulets receiving...

Volcanoes and black sand beaches

Stranded by Everest-deep ocean.

I, too, am marked by waters,

Born a Scorpio, for good and ill,

Familiar with glittering frosty mornings,

Drifting snow, cumulonimbus towers,

Ear-splitting, rain-gorged supercells...

I have seen swirling, green-sky terror

And sat insomniac through hurricanes,

Two dark, one white, and grinned.

I am drawn, polarized, once again

To deep water, to saline amniotic fluid

From whence I came, a storm unnamed,

Tropical depression, seeking healing balm,

Calming, renewal of my formidable core

Until my own lion's roar again resounds,

Drowning out the screaming, searing,

Sticky cacophony that hounds me.