Sample Poems
Tree Frogs at 8:30 pm on a Wednesday
Night in Rain
fulfilling a promise made long ago.
Grant that the stars shine
above these thick layers.
Still, I sit on the concrete
step of the front porch and listen
as the mystery unravels.
None of it secret.
Knit. Purl.
--Originally published in /pan | de | mik/ 2020, An Anthology of Pandemic Poems by OPA Members
~
Parissawampitts
Out here on the west end of the north end
watching the sun go down. What was it, the layers
or non-repeating ridgelines disappearing in the distance
obscured by that blue sundown haze, the orange
flame in the center, which drew me? I with my
little hissing backpack stove, its one burner
igniting the black night which is rapidly approaching.
Soon the stars and the planets. Venus first. Then Jupiter.
The smudge of the Pleiades. I with my hot cocoa
which will keep me awake long after midnight.
How the spruce and the fir and the pines mix in with
aspen. How they all shimmer silver from the glow
of the headlamp. My lovely ghosts. In the morning
it is back out to the developed area of the park's
north rim, past the meadows, the wild turkey, the
bison, always deer. But for now this compact flame
hisses and the water boils. It is long since I saw you,
my friend. It seems accurate that nothing turns out
the way we expect it. There will always be loss.
Look, the last gold fleck has expired, been snuffed out
by horizon. Las Vegas is way, way, way over there.
Even then it is too close by my estimation. Here
the night is silent. Let it remain so. We can hear
the call of the night hawks. I with my tan skin
and my boots. You with your grave face.
--Originally published in The Stillwater Review Volume 10, 2020
~
Nearing the Vastness of Things
The mind grasps for anything at this moment to
hold onto, lest it drift out and fly off into air like a
small brown bat. Cleaving the starlight, eating
bugs, sweeping the blackness.
--Originally published in Peregrine Volume XXXI 2017
Night in Rain
fulfilling a promise made long ago.
Grant that the stars shine
above these thick layers.
Still, I sit on the concrete
step of the front porch and listen
as the mystery unravels.
None of it secret.
Knit. Purl.
--Originally published in /pan | de | mik/ 2020, An Anthology of Pandemic Poems by OPA Members
~
Parissawampitts
Out here on the west end of the north end
watching the sun go down. What was it, the layers
or non-repeating ridgelines disappearing in the distance
obscured by that blue sundown haze, the orange
flame in the center, which drew me? I with my
little hissing backpack stove, its one burner
igniting the black night which is rapidly approaching.
Soon the stars and the planets. Venus first. Then Jupiter.
The smudge of the Pleiades. I with my hot cocoa
which will keep me awake long after midnight.
How the spruce and the fir and the pines mix in with
aspen. How they all shimmer silver from the glow
of the headlamp. My lovely ghosts. In the morning
it is back out to the developed area of the park's
north rim, past the meadows, the wild turkey, the
bison, always deer. But for now this compact flame
hisses and the water boils. It is long since I saw you,
my friend. It seems accurate that nothing turns out
the way we expect it. There will always be loss.
Look, the last gold fleck has expired, been snuffed out
by horizon. Las Vegas is way, way, way over there.
Even then it is too close by my estimation. Here
the night is silent. Let it remain so. We can hear
the call of the night hawks. I with my tan skin
and my boots. You with your grave face.
--Originally published in The Stillwater Review Volume 10, 2020
~
Nearing the Vastness of Things
The mind grasps for anything at this moment to
hold onto, lest it drift out and fly off into air like a
small brown bat. Cleaving the starlight, eating
bugs, sweeping the blackness.
--Originally published in Peregrine Volume XXXI 2017
"For me writing is kind of a way for me to explore why I want things and why I'm afraid of things and why I worry about things. And for me, all of those things represent a kind of hunger that comes with being raised in a place like this."--Natalie Diaz (1978- )