Poems by Carter McKenzie
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Prayer for Heaven
by Carter McKenzie
From Canary Spring 2012
Carter lives in the foothills of western Oregon’s Cascade Mountains in the Middle Fork Willamette watershed near Lost Creek.
May it hold the sounds
of the raw seams of our world,
our difficult heart, the borders
always at war.
May it hold mercy.
May it never be
above and beyond
blossoms
scattering.
May it gather the blossoms beyond
the dark wall, on every side
revealing
an opening.
May it discover new names.
May heaven be generous, may
its own burning
sky,
its seraphim of infinite
moons and suns,
include every loss, even
the loneliness of the bones of a dog
floating
among the miracles of space
before the anonymous fall, the abandoned vessel’s
fiery descent, everything
gone wrong, may it include even
the loneliness of the dog.
May it hold in its eye
the deep blue
dream we keep trying to tell—
how the light falls apart,
then is saved
no matter what happens,
again and again, may heaven
be the singing, and may we be
forever changed.
© Carter McKenzie
Stories of the Black Ware Seed Jar
—after a seed jar created by R. Diane Martinez
by Carter McKenzie
I have been through fire.
My form is fixed,
smoke-dark,
patterns of wing,
beak, thunder, and eye,
the storm of birds
chasing each other,
energies of life.
My small mouth
is starred,
cool and dry,
remembering
seeds
of potential.
Burnished
with stone,
I recall patience
through winter,
through wind,
through the rains
that fill the arroyos.
I absorb, hold
what stirs, rattles
like prayers,
like snakes,
awaiting release until
they pour my gifts
into the field again,
what you imagine—
where I began,
seed after seed,
fire becoming
field,
blossom and grain
and all of the voices
therein.
© Carter McKenzie
To Be Greeted at the River
by Carter McKenzie
From Canary Fall 2018
the gray unpromising
cold becoming
your folded wings
your back
curved
over the rushing waters
I call you
blessing
the slightest turn
of your head toward me
the sharp
edge of your long beak
against
the river and traffic
ebbing and surging
echoing stone
and concrete
unceasing
hollow throats
so many
gone
dear brother dear friend dear
unknown
and where do I go
but away
so as not to disrupt
your attention
for what might feed you
for what might live
beneath the cold
grasses and waters
in this dark-green
November light
where I step back
not to lay this to waste—
vast
blue wingspan
my eyes have surely seen
From the author’s collection Stem of Us from Flowstone Press
© Carter McKenzie