Palpable and Mute

On a good morning

I am the shaman

on a great morning

I am all thirteen of them

 

a conclave of fire and feathers

atop the Sayan Mountains.

 

I practice divinations

while sipping coffee

and braiding my syllabic chants

into crows’ shouts

I call the words gather

they descend the World Tree

I lead ancestral heroes

to the island of my page.

 

This morning

I am a correspondent

fumbling with my camera

to document this Siberian ritual

or worse an ill-fated Yakutian bull

bellowing centuries

as I surrender to the blade

palpable and mute.

 

On a good morning

I am both the knife

and the warm bowl of cow’s blood –

on a great morning

I am a poet.

 

 

Candice Kelsey

Candice Kelsey’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Burningword — recently her nonfiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. An educator of 20 years’ standing with her master’s degree in literature from LMU, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.