The Poetry of Ellin Anderson

GRAND BOIS DU NORD

Ellin Anderson
 

Night sits measuring shadows here,
Deep and stark
Where the hills are dark
With evergreen haunts for the hungry deer,
So that strangers understand
Winter's claim upon the land.

In the path of the Boreal sign —
Cross and sword
Keeping watch and ward —
All the hastening clouds align
Like harried sheep that crowd as one
Grey ring around the brazen sun.

Miles of timberland stretch away,
Thick with spires
For a million fires.
There, the cardinal and the jay
Vaunt their colors, clear and warm,
Undiminished by the storm.

Hearths are holiest to the strong
Who find here
Neither death nor fear,
Only visions that leap along
The heartwood, sending sparks that fly
To mix our ashes with the sky.

If the dome of the air is vast,
High, and old,
And supremely cold,
We have intimacy at last
With stars no stranger to the soul
Than speckles on an old tin bowl.

Foes who venture within the pale
Turn and race,
For the wolves give chase,
And the fury of scythe and flail
That bent the harvest to our good
Is still more useful in the wood.

Where the cedars enclose the glade,
Crimson flow
On the virgin snow
Kindles hearts that recall the Maid
At Paris, as the red star aims
One arrow, and goes down in flames.

And the end of the chase is harsh,
As they drink
Of the dark, and sink
Down, to lie in the wet cold marsh,
Where summer finds blue flags in bloom,
Undiminished by the gloom.
 

© 2008 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be copied or used in any way
without written permission from the author.




Bloodroot
Dream
St. Patrick's Day
Seabrook
Tiger and Blue Jewel

Winter's Hill
Maple-Key Song
November in Camelot

Wassail Song
Veleda
Cinderella
The Rooster at Midsummer
Liberty Enlightens the People

The Leap
The Goldfinch
Three Bears
Song of the Lily
White Tree at Twilight
The Christmas Tree

Song-Sparrow
The Owl
Moth Summer
Verticordia
The Little God of Joy
Pear-Petals
Photographing the Moon
A Rabbit
Rose, Do You Know
The Two Pining Bachelors
Lorelei
Persephone

Avalon
The Harvest Chorus
The Maple Mask
Ghost Cardinal
The Little Heath-Rose
Found
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Song for the Harp

The Spinner
 
The Prayer of Cephalus
Circe and Ulysses
The Black Arts
Tristan and Isolde & Jupiter's Two Casks
Nectanebus

Home Page

More Poems by Ellin Anderson

The Little Mermaid
Vermeer
Anne's Hearth