Poems by Judie Rae
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At Pond's Edge
by Judie Rae
From Canary Summer 2012
Judie, a Canadian, lives in Nevada City, California, in the South Yuba Watershed, an area whose trees and waterways remind her of magical summers spent at her grandmother’s cottage on the Ottawa River.
From the heron we learn
patience---
each interminable,
cautious, silent
step.
The strike,
the miss
and the relentless
programmed
refrain.
Wading on spindly legs
through muddied waters
we feel our way---appendages
splayed,
ready to slug
life
down a waiting gullet.
Greedy.
Thankful.
© Judie Rae
Geese on a Northern California Pond
by Judie Rae
From Canary Fall 2012
For thirty years I heard the cries,
the flap of wings heavier than
air, than the longing of that child
who stood, hand in grandmother’s
hand and watched Canadian skies
dark with your masses, my wonder
carried with you----
to here.
Memory’s tint is
silver---
silver wings,
silver waters of the Ottawa,
silver hair, a weave of time
rewoven now in glint of bone,
piece of sky.
Heavy bodied, elegant on pond
or field, this twice-told
gift,
this fine-toothed
love.
Previously published in "The Acorn."
© Judie Rae
Lost Hills
by Judie Rae
Meet me at the dump, he said,
the words of a practical man.
And so she trailered him there
long in tooth, foundered,
to his final destiny among
the rusted Frigidaires, bald
tires, mounds
of diapers and orange rinds.
Seagulls and turkey
vultures
looked on while
the vet, a practical man,
searched for vein
in thickened neck, thrust
needle through the aged,
rough coat.
When he was down
still she spoke to him
murmured of hills, enchanted
light and fields
gold with summer wheat.
His hooves pawed
a final time
at the earth
bare of sage, chaparral,
but perhaps
he remembered.
The stench of fermented waste,
like fog,
hung
in arid heat.
Decay, a fact.
Love, an old beast
gracious
in this last act
forgiving
Previously published in Nimord 2008.
© Judie Rae
Season's Passing
by Judie Rae
From Canary Fall 2013
After a fall rain
when the earth smells
of spores and small
hopes,
berries hang,
pie ripe,
untouched,
lost to summer’s bounty.
In the field
the bones of a fallen deer
too old even for dog wonder
glisten in the last sun
and gather milky
proof
of season’s passing.
Previously published in The Acorn.
© Judie Rae
Season's Passing
by Judie Rae
From Canary Fall 2012
After a fall rain
when the earth smells
of spores and small
hopes,
berries hang,
pie ripe,
untouched,
lost to summer’s bounty.
In the field
the bones of a fallen deer
too old even for dog wonder
glisten in the last sun
and gather milky
proof
of season’s passing.
Previously published in "The Acorn."
© Judie Rae