Emily Brisse

Instead of forests, this summer we are Big Sky and pointed fingers. (And it feels fine.)

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? . . . I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . . the produced babe of the vegetation. Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among whites, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same. And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves. -- Walt Whitman lines 90-101 from Leaves of Grass

Bright snow, bright moon Mornings of bright breath beside mine Such aching, such light *** Though I've shown up here less this last year, Landing on Cloudy Water is still a special place for me, as are all of you. Thanks for your continued community and support. Here's to a spectacular, gentle, and joy-filled 2014!  Merry Christmas!

all ignorance toboggans into know and trudges up to ignorance again: but winter's not forever,even snow melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then? all history's a winter sport or three: but were it five,i'd still insist that all history is too small for even me; for me and you,exceedingly too small. Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave merely to toil the scale to shrillerness per every madge and mabel dick and dave --tomorrow is our permanent address and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do, we'll move away still further:into now  -- by e. e. cummings

Like a stunned piano, like a bucket of fresh milk flung into the air or a dozen fists of confetti thrown hard at a bride stepping down from the altar, the stars surprise the sky. Think of dazed stones floating overhead, or an ocean of starfish hung up to dry. Yes, like a conductor's expectant arm about to lift toward the chorus, or a juggler's plates defying gravity, or a hundred fastballs fired at once and freezing in midair, the stars startle the sky over the city. And that's why drunks leaning up against abandoned buildings, women hurrying home on deserted side streets, policemen turning blind corners, and even thieves stepping from alleys all stare up at once. Why else do sleepwalkers move toward the windows, or old men drag flimsy lawn chairs onto fire escapes, or hardened criminals press sad foreheads to steel bars? Because the night is alive with lamps! That's why in dark houses all over the city dreams stir in the pillows, a million plumes of breath rise into ...

Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,    or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance    and comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays    carp and whistle all day in the branches, without     the push of the wind.  But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing     for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen  and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage     of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.  Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a     little sunshine, a little rain.  Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from     one boot to another -- why don't you get going?  For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.  And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists     of idleness, I don...

Reluctantly we leave —water dripping from hands and chin, sand coating our feet

on thick days the rhododendron, the azalea shrubs in blush are too much concluded praise,  so I slip into the quiet of green woods and green air and say nothing

When the wind rises, crabapple blossoms fall as fingerprints on your back.

The winter it didn't snow, I lost two pairs of slippers. I stood in steaming showers. I left the blinds broke-open after dark. The winter it didn't snow, I peeled and crunched on carrots. I trailed a hawk out hunting. I practiced yoga, cat and cowed, pigeon-toed. The winter it didn't snow, I met the sunrise, sunset. I listened to those engines. I tended potted plants with faith and fuss.   The winter it didn't snow, I scribbled a.m. hope notes. I remembered California. I found myself entranced again with techno. The winter it didn't snow, I held my love like hunger. I warmed my feet along him. I dreamt of us as children, us as grey. The winter it didn’t snow, I touched the fine lines forming. I finally took my vitamins. I tried to hush my mind, to let it slow. The winter it didn't snow, I wanted truth. But vastness. I wanted peace. But Future. I sought simplicity, the cool white sky. The winter it didn't snow, I waited for that foot fall. I waited for...

To be of the Earth is to know the restlessness of being a seed the darkness of being planted the struggle toward the light the pain of growth into the light the joy of bursting and bearing fruit the love of being food for someone the scattering of your seeds the decay of the seasons the mystery of death and the miracle of birth. -- By John Soos

Many thanks to Roadside Poetry's organizer, Paul Carney, and my mom, ever the intrepid photographer. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

that night we lay on air sultry as an Egyptian's exhale. Nothing stirred but firefly wings and our gentle fingers, figuring at the throb and pulse that electrified such small bodies with sparks. Their glimmer laced the lake's edge like a necklace, like lookout smoke, and we drifted tranquil within, at peace with each other, our unwearied lips. The water was blue-black beneath us, a veiled mirror underneath the cloak of sky, light discovering light only when we moved. -- by Emily Brisse, originally published in The Talking Stick , Vol. 20, Editor's Choice award

Earlier this week I lead my creative writing students through the creation of a four-line, twenty-characters-a-piece poem inspired by one of the four seasons. Why? Oh, because of this small little fantastically awesome thing that’s happening up in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, called Roadside Poetry . I’d stumbled upon RP's website and mission in August, and I immediately knew it was something I’d use in my classroom. I mean, a short poem, a challenging riddle-like form, a stretch of pavement, and four billboards? Surely one of those would get teenagers writing. It had worked for me. The happy news is that my own submission to Roadside Poetry has been accepted for this autumn. In a few short days, the beginnings of 90,000 sets of eyes will drive past my verses and maybe, hopefully, read them, think about beauty instead of dinner, see the leaves instead of their cell phones, consider change as an image instead of a stress. Paul Carney, the coordinator of Roadside Poetry, said that...

Early August, and the young butternut is already dropping its leaves, the nuts thud and ring on the tin roof, the squirrels are everywhere. Such richness! It means something to them that this tree should seem so eager to finish its business. The voice softens, and word becomes air the moment it is spoken. You finger the limp leaves. Precisely to the degree that you have loved something: a house, a woman, a bird, this tree, anything at all, you are punished by time. Like the tree, I take myself by surprise. -- By John Engels

When your hands go out, love, toward mine, what do they bring me flying? Why did they stop at my mouth, suddenly, why do I recognize them as if then, before, I had touched them, as if before they existed they had passed over my forehead, my waist? Their softness came flying over time, over the sea, over the smoke, over the spring, and when you placed your hands on my chest, I recognized those golden dove wings, I recognized that clay and that color of wheat. All the years of my life I walked around looking for them. I went up the stairs, I crossed the roads, trains carried me, waters brought me, and in the skin of the grapes I thought I touched you. The wood suddenly brought me your touch, the almond announced to me your secret softness, until your hands closed on my chest and there like two wings they ended their journey. -- By Pablo Neruda For my dear brother and his darling in honor of their new marriage.  Much love to you both!

Happy is England! I could be content   To see no other verdure than its own;   To feel no other breezes than are blown   Through its tall woods with high romances blent:   Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment   For skies Italian, and an inward groan   To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,   And half forget what world or worldling meant.   Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;   Enough their simple loveliness for me,   Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:   Yet do I often warmly burn to see   Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,   And float with them about the summer waters.   -- by John Keats

i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and love and wings; and of the gay great happening ilimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any - lifted from the no of all nothing - human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)  -- by e. e. cummings

Harshness vanished. A sudden softness has replaced the meadows' wintry grey. Little rivulets of water changed their singing accents. Tendernesses, hesitantly, reach toward the earth from space, and country lanes are showing these unexpected subtle risings that find expression in the empty trees. -- by Rainer Maria Rilke

Listen, The wind is still, And far away in the night -- See! The uplands fill With a running light. Open the doors. It is warm; And where the sky was clear-- Look! The head of a storm That marches here! Come under the trembling hedge-- Fast, although you fumble... There! Did you hear the edge of winter crumble -- by Mark Van Doren