Laurel Turner #fibropoet with pencils for legs

 A note sounded the sky, soared, snagged itself on stars-- steadied, straightened, God reached out, hung a chord.

Branches twist their backs  down the cedar stump, pulled from under the mountain ash by the leaning sun's dusty hands.

…Answer me quickly./ My days vanish like smoke;/ my bones burn like glowing embers.   Song 102/   Air thrashed the leaves in its teeth—/ a yellow-eyed cougar let loose in our trees/ or a pair of golden angel wings/ flapped and warned of something big—/   beyond our fence.   We caught our breath,/ stopped air-bent toward the trees/ already lit with cackles, cries tropical and wild;/ Multi-colored toucans (I told my lover)/   have traded their enchanted isles/ for the Pacific Northwest/. And now, reveled and now, war/ toward the siege against their sacred place/   under the moss arches of our maple trees/ We surrendered, lowered our held hands/ that shrivel and shrink;  These sterile days/ want and waste like an unhinged prostate./    And then,  a fall or leap from the low branch—/ a Goliath of her kind strapped in red crest,/ draped in sable cape.   Her helmet is not her salvation;/ Father wrapped her tongue around her brain for that

 Feet twitch, lead scratches against the paper stuck between the covers unanswered, undiscovered. Old December day draws her out into its closing. Sky settled in dips and ditches unhinging Rev's cry so it drifted over fences and kept going. Water crackled in the cedars and steamed in the rain's passing that was now, rushing and rising at the gravel road's end. A stranded frog cleared its throat for the eulogy behind the torn scrim. "Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Mark:15:37-38 NLT  c. Laurel Turner 1/30/2020 New Living Translation  (NLT) Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of  Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. , Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Two salmon bruise,/ slap around the rock/ cradled, spilt/ over the jammed water and/ up/ and down/ and up./ The other two/ crack asphalt heels against/ gravel road and inch/ up/ and down/ and up the rush and/ stand/ at the creek. "Why should I fear when evil days come... A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish...This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,...But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself."   

Stick to strings the viola takes the lead-- falls and rises at the skylight over her bed; A back-and-forth bow draws her out of hiding like a note of scripture plucked off the bed table, a pencil whisper under morning covers.   Night terrors clang. Brassy cymbals, they crash and fade-- out played  by the hand-strung pacific rain. ...By the grace of God  I am what I am... Paul to the church at Corinth (15:10)