Two Poems by Lauren Whitehurst
Before Blue
Mary's robe could not have been
the color it is in paintings, in the nativity
set I'm boxing up for next year.
Blue is hard to make, it turns out—rare
in the natural world, consistently last
to language. So much
for your primary cred, Blue:
The ancients did not know you—
not in Greek, early Chinese, Hebrew.
All blueless.
I wrap the virgin in tissue, periwinkle,
though her threats go heedless:
Teeth marks attest.
Strange that the absence or presence
of color isn’t black or white, but words.
How would I get through a day without the word
for my shirt, socks, the collar on the dog?
for diagnoses and how to describe them,
the morning, the twilight, the moon in
Patsy Cline's voice on a scratchy LP,
a bruise's feather beneath the scratch.
Do we think that Homer missed
much in missing
a notion of blue? Children
and lyricists could only ask,
Why is the sky
Measures and Cuts
I am listening
to cello and wondering at
the connection of bow to strings
I want to understand
that relationship—how do they touch
each other like that? Call each other forth?
I strain to discern
exactly when, in the resonance, bow lifts,
sound lingers. In disengagement
I register
judgement, but, perhaps, it is music.
This is difficult to conceive of.
For some, it is difficult to conceive.
I remember
watching my airplane’s shadow skim
the landscape below, like liquid, but
I know better: With intimacy,
the ground is rough and topography throws
plenty obstacles. If words are plane elevation,
I do not know
the words on the ground, so to speak.
What binds them together, to meaning?
I am asking
if there's any kinship among suture
and instrument strings—barring gauge,
I imagine something
in their relative proximity to gaping
wounds or silence, expressed as ( ).
I seek solace
in their ability to sew. Even bones knit.
And liquids flow around the hand
that breaks the surface.
Lauren Whitehurst’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Red Rock Review, Colorado Review, Role/Reboot, the Seattle Review, and other publications. Her blog for the Santa Fe Reporter evolved into an academic/family literacy organization for parenting students called Mother Tongue Project, which she directs in Santa Fe, NM. She holds a BA from Amherst College and an MFA from the University of Washington.
