Elizabeth Reames – Two Poems


 

Sarai’s Tree

Barren brown hulls hang
with air whistling through
Holes where a wellspring
Should be—
It has been a long winter.
Vast, dull, relentless white
Trying to make merry
Among themselves.
The tree dances too:
Fruitless arms waving
in hopeless abandon
she weeps
when the sun comes
and mocks her pain
until she feels a bud
stir within her.



Through the Mountains

I want to reach out and touch
The earth as we drive through—
With my hands, not in them,
so that I will not destroy
that which I love so well.
I can feel it from memory,
the swelling rise of the chest,
but it’s only a ghostly feeling,
phantom limb syndrome.
I almost feel the cool caress
of the dew drenched hair
and reach downwards
towards the soft supple skin
that I live in and on.
What do you hide beneath
your curvaceous figure,
soaked in sap from oak and maple and pine?
I don’t think I want to know.
I use that which comes from you,
I use lead to say I will not take.
But I will not.
These two hands are satisfied
with a thin layer of dust,
a reminder of what I Am made.


 

 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

In a perfect world, I think that there would be a camera that sees the soul of a person, instead of just the outer layer—the camera of choice for magazine ads. That way, we would know if what we are looking at on televisions and in magazines is actually beautiful.


 

Elizabeth Reames is a student and writer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her poetry has been published in Concordia University Ann Arbor’s arts journal, In the Moment. She is currently working on completing a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in theatre, and is looking into a master’s degree in Shakespeare Studies. Though she focuses more on writing plays and novellas, she makes sure to write poetry at any opportunity. She is the founder of The Vintage Reader, a book reviewing blog. More at: vintagereaderblog.wordpress.com.