Beate Sigriddaughter

The Show

While the exquisite lady sings a heart-rending ballad out on stage, the dancers in back are frantic.
“My belt.” “My shoe.” “Where is my fan?” “Hand me that shawl.”

And while you make polite conversation at the silver platter buffet, rain soaks rice fields thousands of miles away.

It is all the same show. Clap your most excellent hands!

Late Summer Mountain

Orion back just before dawn. The air filled with morning wings of birds.

At times the voice of a red winged blackbird, the arc of a red winged grasshopper in flight. How can you not love something with red wings?

My love looks good with sunrise, mountains, juniper behind him, tall with a prickle of intensity.

The past with its lazy lamplights has faded to wood scent in sunlight. And I believe

at the time of my birth this raven was planned high into the air for just this moment, adding bold shadows to the play of light.

I still don’t have the language for a simple rosebud. Words feel like earnest handshakes among mortals in the presence of arcane immortal beings.

A tiny yellow flower whispers solemnly: I am your song.

Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.net, grew up in Nürnberg, Germany. Her playgrounds were a nearby castle and World War II bomb ruins. She lives in Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment), USA, where she was poet laureate from 2017 to 2019. Her latest collections are prose poems Kaleidoscope (Cholla Needles, May 2021) and short stories Dona Nobis Pacem (Unsolicited Press, December 2021). In her blog Writing In A Woman’s Voice, she publishes other women’s voices.