Poems by Muriel Nelson
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Axis Mundi, Tree at the Center of the Universe
by Muriel Nelson
Muriel lives in Federal Way, Washington, near Puget Sound and West Hylebos Wetlands Park, one of Puget Sound’s last remaining peat bogs.
My writing lamp blinks off whenever it pleases.
Stay with me, little light.
Outside in winter coats, firs stand around.
They lean close to whisper windy chants
and show with apparent parental patience
why Native Americans call them grandfathers.
If such a tree falls in a forest
while other trees bend in the icy wind
and no one is there to hear —
or if only one hand claps (that other
Zen riddle, like a one-penny tip
from a hostile patron) —
if we live a long time with these koans
as trees rustle old limbs, drop things, make cracks, push back,
nurture each other, and generally get on with it —
if we don’t hear when a person or tree hurts and falls —
if whole forests clap with biblical zeal, and we don’t take a stance
even now when earth’s central tree’s wobbling as never before —
how will we keep our balance?
© Muriel Nelson
Drowning Kiribati
by Muriel Nelson
A map of Kiribati shows blue ocean. That’s it.
Blue ocean with a dot.
Press it and you see
“Map of Kiribati.” Three
meters high, its highest. Home
for some
for now.
Mauri,
welcome
to where we’re from.
Welcome to what you’ve caused,
to salted homes we’ve nearly lost
where spirits with no word for mountain
live, still—our spirits of the coral, the coconut, the palm.
To the rats, the dogs, the pigs, the oysters, the church,
to people missing shacks, shoes, limbs, and shirts—
the water comes, three-sixty views, three king tides
a year. We talk of arks, of Fiji, as water comes inside
what you call squalor or riddance
what we call Kiribas,
our only home.
© Muriel Nelson
Rumor’s a Fun Fact
by Muriel Nelson
From Canary Spring 2021
Roofs are steaming like beekeepers’ smokers,
or a roof is burning while bees smoke.
Plum petals fall so snowingly
that rain doesn’t show,
and my old foe photinia
votes again for the red party
blocking out windows with leaflets.
It’s peaceful, though, isn’t it?
The president’s people say everyone knows
whatever they claim today. Now
they say the president’s making good
(on one of his threats).
Others say a mustache is making war.
It’s shady business, so here come the pines
where there’s just enough room for a chair
between our old rhododendron
and new burning bush
if you’d care to sit
as crowds re-enact Exodus.
The air is as still as on 9/11,
the bees so calm you can host
a tasting in the bloom by your arm
or watch an ant rick-racking rough bark
while it climbs an inch or two as if, as if
(as if could take us anywhere),
as if bees weren’t endangered,
as if there were no drought coming
and no threat of smoke in the still air.
As if this too-early warmth with its plain blue sky,
green burning bush, and huge, gentle blossoms were normal,
were good.
Previously published in bosque journal.
© Muriel Nelson