JAMIE IRONS


Beautiful River

Now as Indian summer ends, cut-out red
Men feast with Pilgrims, on construction paper.
Leaves bum. Once we dreamed how wild Indians left
Words like Ohio

Behind, for us to live withlike the mythic
"Indian grandmother" in our family
Tree, giving us, commoners, some claim to a
Noble provenance.

The ancestors slept. Around bedtime, questions
Vexed me, vexing my mother: Pilgrims in our
Family? No, we're from Kansas
. Your grandpa's
Your dad remembers

Who we were, are, a story's pieces.... Prayers
As the story's done. Meaning to sleep, heedful
As crickets stayed up late, I would lay me down
I am not drowning.

 

Poems by Jamie Irons:

On Hearing, But Not Seeing, a Cardinal
A Second Reading of The Book of Tea
Celestial Mechanics and the I
Mowing the Field, I Spare Convolvulus,
Blue-Eyed Grass, Wild Iris, Wild Hyacinth
Spring Equinox Spent at Planned Parenthood
Fourteen Lines for Elijah by the Sea
Motion in Three-Space, Motion in the Plane
Hitch-Hiking
Beautiful River
Finding the Complex Roots of Unity
Burden
After the Shipwreck, Crawling Back to You
The Calculus of Variation Holds
Iron

TIMES TEN: An Anthology of Northern California Poets