Boars Nest Sept 6 2021
I’m grateful for the Ancestors who visit in dreams
curl around my ankles like cat’s tails
while standing at the kitchen sink.
The rain came in sometime between 0100 and 0200
by 0711 no birds – again I recall two sayings:
rain before 7, done by 11
when the birds are feeding in the rain, the rain, it ain’t gonna stop
And then there is my cranium barometer
that I pray good black coffee of soul corrects
The owl visited again last night
with single swallowed yodel gulped
into its gullet – hair and bone – digest
the good bits – pack into pellets
puked out for the next creature to consume
Someone’s shit is someone’s glory
Hyenas of the north feed on what they can
I’m not a Hallmark poet
blessed & cursed with observational nuances
vocabularic struts –
brilliant gusts stir syntactic dalliance just enough
to tell you a story that the salmon never completely left
stubborn persistence & the fact
that the Creator placed in them instructions
so clear – loud & true –they just keep going
my Dad was like that
• • •
Suzanne S. Rancourt – of Abenaki / Huron, Quebecois & Scottish descent – is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army. Her books include Songs of Archilochus (Unsolicited Press, 2023); Old Stones, New Roads (Main Street Rag, 2021); murmurs at the gate (Unsolicited Press, 2019), winner of the 2023 Poetry of Modern Conflict Award; Billboard in the Clouds (Curbstone Books, 2004), awarded the Native Writers First Book Award. Suzanne is a multi-modal Expressive Arts Therapist with degrees in psychology and writing.