Poetry By Samantha Zinn
As a child – A sonnet
And primal was inside of us and burning.
It was the epitome of fantasy places,
And there was a need to heed that yearning.
I was a Pennsylvania woods warrior’s daughter
Pine sap lasts on palms or fists wreaking that smell,
Of creek water nakedness and inhibition’s slaughter.
It was a heaven, and I was lighter when dark fell.
A sticky dirt of a different taste –
Soaked moss and mystery fern lent to salamander dreams.
Not the red dirt Colorado grown-up place that I chased –
Where everything really is what it seems.
And I miss the faces of oak and coal -
The faces pressed with age into this savage soul.
Season’s Circle
I pushed myself against
A wall of whiter light.
A tree smell, like split wood.
Pennsylvania fire –
I sat through the burning.
Sinuosity slow –
A river’s pulse or breath –
The passion in the water.
Leaves green to red to down,
Softly, like knowing when
To stop or start something.
Seasons, small pieces spilling,
Piling up into heaps
Of beauty, from much less.
Black Beaver
Like wind in trees with magic leaves.
Black braids framing a painted face,
Blood-red like the wolves’ own death stain.
With the voice of warrior’s grandson –
His words carried from mouth to air without patience.
And a smile suited for prophets or saints.
He slipped out before I was done
Asking and answering questions.
He slipped out without the moccasins
And without the braids or the smile.
But with a foretelling for us to meet again
When wild is more of what we are.
Midshipman
They drop tears constant like ashes - or more humbly - like leaves.
Gripping flag-handle high he holds tightly, guarding a message
from gusty Annapolis winds off water. One last from her nest,
on to sail a lesson-long-coming ship.
Marching in song, he wears white well, screaming scratchy
plebe-throat answers, pride-inspired, to questions of tradition.
Baby brother, teach me how to be desperate
for discipline different from dad's.
Navy brother, show me shades of a man's sea-crashed hands
that remember when to stop.
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