poems – earth in sway
In selecting five poems I wrote as part of my Ekphrastic Poetry Group this year, I strived to create a medley that will keep our spirits up in hard times, while not shying away from the hard realities. Ready for a bit of gentle sway, flowers dancing, visions of Celilo Falls return, insomnia, and a poem for Alex Pretti and Renee Good? Read on.
Earth in Sway
In the sway of snowflakes
wafting from clouds
I catch a crystal wafer melting
on the sway of my tongue,
my hands on narrow hips,
leaning back in sway,
tasting feather, sap, tree sigh
and sway song of finch
laced into the fraying sway
of our one floating nest.
–Marina Richie
Spell of Unbinding
Flower people of Cuba petal the dawn in fruity pastels
Mango, mamey sapote, camito, guava, and carambola.
Sway bendy stems. Salsa, rumba, and cha cha-cha
Mamoncillo leaves of lime gather sunshine
by the armfuls. Taller and taller. Roots loosening,
Tickling a white rabbit awake in a pink burrow
Flower people of Cuba are walking away
Tiptoeing past a sleepy girl so very tiny
floating in her watery blue aura
She is not surprised. Lying there on her back
Knees pulled up. Listening to flower talk
far above her. Gossip of the latest floral affair.
Not far away, her mother in tree pose
Has cast yet another spell. Created
a map of the walking flowers
where borders dissolve into orchids
Straight lines swirl into lover reunions
An island topography always in relief
–Marina Richie
Chasm of Near Extinction
Ghost of lost salmon flicks her scaled tail
sending star showers skittering across
dammed Columbia River, bearing true names
shifting in languages. Her native peoples
who lived with her since time immemorial
honoring in ceremony, showering gratitidues.
Knowing all as sentient. Big River. Old Forest.
Columnar basalt rock. Animals as people.
Far below drowned river surface
Celilo Falls– Wy-am –still cries
for her freedom, to once again
drum, thrum, and roar in free fall
to breathe coiling mist over men tethered
by ropes to rickety wood platforms.
Dipping nets at end of long poles.
Salmon leaping and thrashing
called by fragrant birthplace waters, hundreds
of miles away, up Columbia, Salmon, Snake
Rivers, up tributaries. Millions–Chinook, Coho,
Sockeye, Steelhead, and Pink salmon before
condemnation. Fourteen dams on Columbia.
Four on Lower Snake- too much for salmon.
Warming reservoirs. Rising temperatures.
Mother orca in Salish Sea carrying
dead calf she could not feed because
salmon are life force. Nourishing Pacific Ocean.
River, forest, bear, and eagle. Extinction nears.
Time not our friend. Take down the four lower
Snake River dams. Free the river of her chains.
I call Oregon home. I am not alone
in one boat chasing one fish below
looming walls of corporate strict, straight
greed aiming even for distant planets.
Together, we who love what’s wild
will form a mighty flotilla, oars rowing,
voices singing, echoing off living
canyons enfolding Big River.
And oh if we could be mighty as Celilo
once was, we would blast away concrete
Dalles Dam trapping her wild beauty,
built of concrete in 1957, the year before
my birth, when my mother’s belly
swelled, as I swam in amniotic fluid,
innocent, blissful, and unknowing
of violation 3,000 miles away.
–Marina Richie
Wrestling With Worries
Wind swaying night pines.
Waxing crescent moon
Wedged in top tree branch
While rain whispers
Why can’t you sleep?
*
What if I fill my patchwork brain
With soothing drowsy golden
Wildflowers? Blanket. Poppy. Balsamroot.
Wildly will a black cormorant to sail over choppy
Waves so I can rest in her calm water wake.
–Marina Richie
(I wrote the poem below January 2026 in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti.)
May I have in this moment
Sensibility of sleeping owls who
know when to blink their round eyes
in daylight/
and when to open them wide
in nighttime/
May I have in this moment
An owl-worthy cloak of softest down
to offer to the families of Alex and Renee
grief stricken/
their own feathers plucked clean
ICE stricken/
May I have in this moment
Snuggling refuge of somnolent owls
who perch four to a branch
In familial love/
knowing the cadence of breathing
In rhythm/
May I have in this moment
*
Bravery of ICU nurse Alex Pretti who chose to step between
masked armed ICE agents and a peaceful woman protester
Murdered/
Goodness of Renee Good, poet, mother, caring citizen
Murdered/
May I have in this moment
The fierceness of curved razor-sharp talons
to enter my soft fingers pecking at keys
in sorrow/
The fringed wing feathers to fly with stealth
in uprising/
–Marina Richie
