Young writer’s,
believe with your hearts
Baby birds
you are about to storm out
into a world…
That might not see you.
Will not know you.
You will be invisible.
Listen…
in all directions;
absorb the spoken,
slip into each tellers skin.
Hear…
what’s left unsaid,
such things can be
silent truths.
Watch…
with caution fledgling nights
of corn-stalk moons;
martyred truths,
and insanity’s logic.
Read the unwritten,
write the visible
for in tomorrow’s fray
your words…your truth
will be history.
—Debra J. Harmes Kurth
Hesitation at the Iris
'Tis not how dusty are the feet
that move in dance when souls meet;
nor aged feathers lost from wings,
but ancient quill that softly sings
hinting of hidden magic things.
As falling leaf upon the bank
sits and rots where cities sank;
stars fly through the cosmic gate,
as drops of dew on iris wait
for one to stop and hesitate.
'Tis not a song that's heard by all
for few know it's quiet call
of gentle muse or ash that's charred,
this path so long and often hard
'tis but the journey of the bard.
—Debra J. Harmes Kurth
She who lived inside the trees
Left an undiscovered forest
inside urbane acres, chewed
wormwoods pressed flat,
planed out, finished boxes
lined with her words
negated . . . unadorned.
One tiny room,
below the ground,
rocks and water.
Closed in, locked off
she hid from;
train whistles, sirens,
talk of bodily functions,
hair, touch, mindless chatter,
and the voracious worms;
digging, licking, sucking dry,
chewing, always chewing
new holes.
Lights flashed or floated
the garden died, left
tiny heads undeveloped,
sad little green things,
welcomed back by richness
which betrayed them.
She begged the Mother
of linen, richness, paper,
water, rocks, sad little
green things and rest
to unclasp her fingers . . .
To replace the centers
too green, under-grown,
under-ground with bursts
of light, color and the
worm’s extinction in
the wormwoods.
Fill the gaps,
plaster the planes,
elevate the buried,
make perfect the garden,
unclasp fingers, embrace
the lost girl, the woman
pressed flat, bald, naked
in a word lined box
in urban acres.
—Debra J. Harmes Kurth