Two Poems by Linnea Harper

Homage to Dressage*

Down at the hippocampus

where blood and electrons meet
sparking emotion and instinct

large mythozoic mammals

abandon dry land to submerge
in rivers of effortless breath

and oh! the cool joy that rises

as gravity falls
and oh! how lightly they

tread in the lazy underhaze

wafting through haphazard
currents in equine ballets

(*with apologies to the noble 'potomous)

 

 

 

Old Elephants

 

Time must have hooked itself to a chain

of old elephants to be going this slow.

These circus ghosts, retired with health care,

have nothing to do all day but drag it around

their sanctuary like a bale of rotting hay,

leaving bits and stalks in their lurch.

 

Shall we hitch a ride on the back

of this beast? Take the time and slow it down

to a sleepy turtle's traipse? Scrape it against

the walls and drag it through the water trough?

Unhook it where it washes up, watch it dry

in the slow air?

 

Or we could keep our distance

maybe pellet the tough hides

with pebbles from peashooters,

try to get a rise. 

 

When they were young, and shapely women

with scanty clothing rode their proud shoulders,

did they quicken their pace then? 

 

And did time stop altogether in the spotlight,

in the warm glow of the applause,

and are they all recalling now

their last bow, one knee on the floor,

hoping against hope

it will never start again?

 

 

 

 

Linnea Harper lives on a tidal slough on the Oregon coast, near the mouth of the Alsea River. Her poems have been published here and there, including in CALYX, and she has been a finalist for the Bunchgrass Prize. Before she was a poet, she was a social worker, and before she was a social worker, she was a poet.