Dale Champlin

I Want Something Tangible

–after Arianne True

When I wake up in the night
and the hundred-year-old tree
in front of my house is on fire—
red orange light pouring
into my bedroom window.
I want something more substantial
than longing or nostalgia.
I think of my childhood fear—
my parents are not home
and my house is on fire.
Even worse, it is my parents
themselves that are burning
laid out in their marital bed.
Some of us are raised by wolves,
the way they circle each other
and bay at the moon.
My grandchildren want flattened
pennies. These days there’s a machine
than does that, not the train
passing by every three AM.
My childhood inferno burns.
After the firemen and one firewoman
have come and gone—
the smell of accelerant lingers,
sputtering in the back of my throat.
I remember my parents, Adam and Eve,
beautiful and naked—
no murderous brother in sight.
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Today Joyous as a Court of Kinglets

I am the blossom blooming in late autumn,
drinking in sweet rain—
I am the mountain, the still green clover,
I am the lover nestled in our pillowy bed
I am breakfast,
the first egg of morning
yolk golden and glorious
I am food on the Thanksgiving table
warm from the oven
after days of preparation,
the tart tang of cranberries,
white rolls tender on the inside
yams doused with butter
and gravy poured from a ladle
I am water rushing from the mountaintop,
spilling from the kitchen faucet,
I am the patient grandmother
of the hearthside-flickering fire
I am the baker, the rolling pin,
and the sparkling pie plate
the cherries bursting with sweetness
I am the heart overflowing with joy—
my white hair, my walk around the park
on this early November morning
where a late rose blooms bright as the rising sun
and a flock, a court, a dynasty of kinglets,
flits from twiggy branch to branch
each leaf-small bird
chittering in the language of love.

Dale Champlin, an Oregon poet with an MFA in fine art, has poems in The Opiate, Timberline, Pif, and Triggerfish Critical Review among other journals. Dale has three poetry collections; The Barbie Diaries, Callie Comes of Age, 2021, and Isadora, 2022. Three additional collections, Leda, Medusa, and Andromina, A Stranger in America are forthcoming. For more information: dalechamplin.com