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Nancy Christopherson

Cornflowers, Iris

These vivid blues on the walls of her room
with gold centers, like her eyes when they pan
around for us. It’s hard to tell if she sees us for
certain. No reaching out, no nod of the head,
no voice. I don’t know if the soul acknowledges
in that way. It seems more of a change in the light
from the center, the gold flecks in the iris perhaps,
that lovely bearded tongue. Or simply a general
radiance. She takes in a breath more distinctly
at times, an actual expansion of the rib cage,
a faint rearrangement of the muscles of the eye
as to focus more clearly on subjects. But I believe
she sees us, I do, she just squeezed my hand,
the pulse of energy passing through to my brain.
It tingles there still. I feel something more
here than the eye can discern. She is with us.
As well as she can be while straddling two worlds
simultaneously, spanning two white Lippizan
stallions in that haute ecole of dressage. One of them
performing in acrobatic leaps, the other one dancing across
her arena making tiny steps toward an X. The true riders
seat quietly the animals’ backs. Nary a flicker
of eyelash. She is smiling. I don’t know if she
hears me but I say bravo, mama, bravo. More
importantly, we are at least in the same stadium
as she. Speaking gently, breathing, even fluttering
a little like doves. I believe this reassures her
in the balancing act, one leg in this world one leg in
the other. I am certain there are cornflowers
and iris on the walls there too. There must be,
as the dust motes sprout blue buds and blossom
wildly up ahead of her polished gold hooves.

 

Nancy Christopherson‘s poems have appeared in Helen Literary Journal, Raven Chronicles, Third Wednesday, Verseweavers, Willawaw Journal and Xanadu, among others, and in various regional anthologies. Author of The Leaf (2015), she lives and writes in eastern Oregon. For more information, you can go to her website.

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