Poems

Kimberly L. Becker, Poet

In the Purple and Blue of It

Walking the property

In the late afternoon

In the purple and blue of it

The stand of pines

Fairytale deepness

Past the reservoir

Crunching hulls of black walnuts

Thinking:

This is sacred ground

My eyes devour the view

That I like to claim as mine

But know it’s not, despite the deed

When I return to the anxiety

Of the city

I will long for this land

As a lover for the body of the beloved

I will recall its voice

The trickle of creek

call of hawks

rain as it comes up the valley

I have seen mesas

Great red tables

Altars for sacrifice

But it is these mountains

I hold against the bruise of my heart

The purple and blue

Of their mothering forms

Purple and blue

from Words Facing East (WordTech Editions, 2011)

Grief Kit

All night fox barked My dog on red alert

Morning: two kits on road show those barks were grief

After calling them to cross divide of highway

she mourned their lack of passage and instead their passing

Cry for fox, for Gulf, for body of the world

This ink can undo nothing Cannot undivide before and after

Can only pave a few lines Can only post a meager sign:

Your loss is smaller than the world's

Kits' eyes closed at death as if in birth

give rise to our harsh barks

of grace and grief

from The Dividings (WordTech Editions, 2014)

Snow Bed

In Fairbanks in December the room was stifling hot

You kept kicking
the covers down
to the foot of the bed,
but you felt triumphant
to have come this far
alone to this unhistoried bed

The muffled outside light finally drew you
out of bed
and to the window
where snow glowed
in dim daylight,
unmaking the bed
of your mind
and crumpling time
like kicked-off sheets
Alone beds are always safest

Later, in Bettles,
sled dogs
slept in beds
of snow,
covered by sheets
of changing lights

from The Bed Book (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020)

Ceremony in Lieu of a Funeral

in memory of my father

Lies to soothe the dying:

I forgive you

It doesn’t matter I love you, too

You keep picking through the alphabet for words to say goodbye for words to bless the ICU and oxygen tube

The way his mouth opened like a bird when you moistened it with swabs

the softness of hands you’d never held except as a child

Prayers ascend with smoke

Circling this way you remember circling that way you release

Water’s current carries what you can’t

from Flight (MadHat Press, 2021)

Call

You called when I was in Atlanta, but I couldn't answer

I was at a conference and busy, yes, but also to have heard your voice

would have taken strength I needed to drive long hours back North

so instead I stop at our sacred places, impromptu pilgrimage

to Etowah Mounds—

climbing highest mound to pray—

then on to New Echota

proud capitol where The Trail of Tears started

These are the calls we have to answer, the ones from home to heart,

the ones that go deeper even than words

Skipping tourist shop, I reach for one red leaf

from this place of strength and grief, offering thanks.

My tears are for self,

but also from deeper source

As I merge back on the highway it starts to rain and I greet it

with a word you taught me

that I did not know I remembered,

but that re-members me:

agaska

first published in Claw & Blossom and forthcoming in Bringing Back the Fire (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022)