The Poetry of Emily Strauss

I Will Be Buried with Mice
  
 Archaeologists in Egypt have recovered about 50 mummified animals, 
 including mice, from a well-preserved and finely painted tomb.. NYT 4/6/19 
  
  
 My name is Ta-Shirit. Let my tomb
 be painted in ochre and lapis
 with falcon wings outspread
 on the lintel. See my life.
 There sits my husband Tutu
 on his throne watching over us.
 I hold my daughter's hand
 another falcon glides by.
 She plays hand games
 as the mice run underfoot.
 I love them all, my young
 husband who comes with furry
 animals for me to pet, who 
 brings our beautiful child
 into the winter sun, the second
 wife sweet and doting to us. 
 We are happy together.
The mice eat crumbs
 their rustling at night a sign
 that day would return;
 all would be right as the river
 flows silently past our door.

   


The Wreck
  
 the wreck sits alone on the lot, waits—
 the air bag hangs from the steering wheel
 like a giant flaccid condom
  
 we acknowledge the implosion of glass 
 and steel, body crumpled beyond hope, 
 bodies long removed, dry blood stains 
  
 waits— for the wrecker to winch it
 onto the flat-bed truck, holds it down 
 with metal bands like an asylum inmate
  
 devoid of volition, an inert mass bound 
 and limp, a creation uncreated, its
 brokenness manifest, a reject, waits. 


Old Fence
  
 The fence of the vacant house is falling.
 Old wood, splintered by wind and snow
 blown for years, like teeth gone black
 and falling out— an old man's mouth
 that needs fixing.
 I'm mentioning it to the next inspector
 who comes along. The city isn't caring.
 Look, it's swaying, it is falling tonight.
 It has leaned like that for years.
 Because snow is forgiving. 



The Plundered Heart
  
 Yearning dwells
 in this present circle—
 yet we plunder creation 
 and the circle closes.
  
 The creation's presence
 for long days and nights
 surrounds the orbiting
 heart, and grace
  
 falls within us.
 We fall to the center
 where yearning dwells,
 into the circle
  
 of moments, the gift
 of time visible here
 where some say a creator
 dwells. Grace mantles us
  
 day and night, orbits
 surround us, we long
 for the present heart
 plundered for creation. 



Ghazal on Smoke
  
 half that summer we roasted in a thick pale
 haze that smelled of distant smoke
  
 swirling, roiling clouds stronger
 than any pine needle incense, smoke
  
 rises and falls in the heat, ghostly white,
 drifts through open windows, smoke
  
 uninvited, unwanted, people compare
 notes, should windows be closed from smoke?
  
 Or shall we just carry on as usual 
 with our lives, ignore all that smoke
  
 clogging our throats, giving us sharp headaches
 air quality hazardous today, the smoke's
  
 ash particles over 250 parts per million, red zone 
 on the charts. Yet the neighbors smoke and smoke
  
 their cigarettes on the porch all day as always,
 coughing, but not cannabis, that's dangerous smoke
  
 ought to stay illegal, they nod in collective wisdom,
 it's only an accident that all those trees smoke.
  
 Fires a hundred miles away in the next state, 
 our eyes burn at their almost sweet smoke
  
 after lightning struck one Sunday morning
 during that summer's only storm, new smoke
  
 arising from dozens of infernos, sparks in the dry 
 forest torching whole towns, more smoke. 

***

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry, which she has written since college. Over 450 of her poems appear in a wide variety of online venues and in anthologies, in the U.S. and abroad. She is a Best of the Net and twice a Pushcart nominee. The natural world of the American West is generally her framework; she also considers the narratives of people and places around her. She is a retired teacher living in Oregon.