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The night you were conceived we balanced underneath a tent, amazed at the air-marveler, who, hand-over-hand, seized the stars, then braved the line to carry home a big-top souvenir umbrella. Earth-bound a year, you dare gravity, sliding from the couch to table. Mornings, on tiptoe, stretching fingers, you grab Saturn, Venus and the moons raining down from the sky of ceiling.
Copyright © 2010 by Elise Paschen. Used with permission of the author.
Wa-zha’-zhe, name of the Osage tribe . . . who came from the stars.
—“The Osage and the Invisible World: From the Works of Francis LaFlesche”
The first language
𐓷𐓘𐓻𐓘𐓻𐓟 which Eliza,
her grandmother, spoke.
A flare of russet,
green fronds, surprise
of flush against
the bare grey cypress
in winter woods.
In need of air, she unhinged every
window, revolving ones downstairs,
upstairs skylights, mid-floor French doors,
swept into the house the salt-brine,
the cricket chirp, the osprey whistle,
the sea-current, sound of the Sound,
but had not noticed the basement
bedroom window shielded by blinds,
screen-less. Later that night when they
returned home, lights illuminating
the downstairs hall, insects inhabited
the ground floor rooms. She carried handfuls
of creatures across a River Styx—
the katydids perched on lampshades,