Flora the Poet
In Roundling time when
days were young and she
grew younger –
Flora
who dressed in blossoms
of the seasons:
poinsettia, pansy, honeydew and rose,
whose dewy topiary hair was adorned
with watermelon-colored dumplings and her face
painted mountain ochre, berry purple,
aster magenta –
Flora
whose divided selves protected
between layers of bark
the hider, the open eye-
der who saw beyond
what be –
Flora
whose magic ears recorded Roundling
stories, once upon another layers
of relations, loves echoed, baby round
to aged circles with no owners,
all sharing terra –
Flora
who etched day
long hoopy orbs, upside down orations, oval
invocations and endless ooooo’s –
The last of her poems was discovered
inside a mulberry tree dying
in a deserted Tibetan valley.
It was penned in ink onto an Oho tablet:
wndrus think sef wink pink pieces
togeth heven languae
through it all fallen
inta noon gloon
we wheeled way from grids
ta live’n leaf branch’n limb
sleep unda ta wings
de katydid hid neath sleep lids
beams o dusta bendi
gras trunks o
wiz’n branc yond
wisper criks’n
dawners bentwigs
thimpin jus twing
lukin beyon beehind
otherness liftid
ta farness
C. Albert‘s collages, drawings, photos, assemblages, comics and poetry have been widely published in cool places such as Ink Sweat & Tears, Gargoyle, Grey Sparrow, Indianapolis Review, also upcoming in pacificREVIEW: The Mirror Maze and Propertius Press anthology: Canticles and Spheres. An award winning artist, her works are featured at Four Corners Art in Seattle.
*Flora the Poet was originally published by Ink Sweat & Tears on 7 May 2013 when C Albert was artist/poet-in-residence.