Catherine Arra

Photo by Dion Ogust, 2019

Ode to Forest

—as if you slip between
folded time, slants of light, a traveler, messenger
you appear & wait. Your moon-pool eyes

swim me in milky-earth brown, & then
a single beam of soul fire, just below Betty Boop lashes, beckons.
I swear I hear my name.

Sweet young doe, spirit animal, mine,
you came in early spring, alone—an open slash on your right flank
& though wounded

you tender-eyed, ear-hugged, wet-nosed nodded me
to stop, stay, see—to meet you beyond the wood, the wild
& whirling of planets. You offered me passage

taught me to match breath, heartbeats, read nuance & gesture.
I named you Forest. You named me Tree.
I gave you an apple. You gave me root.


Mileva

His trajectory would span time itself.
His magnetic field, his center of gravity—givens,
a blueprint demanding architects, builders,
fans, financiers, and sacrifice.

He siphoned people into himself, a whirlpool,
or pulled them along in his wake.
Irresistible. His vision unrelenting.
His poetry and light inescapable. All were helpless
against their love, hate, or awe of him.

Each in kind—family,
colleagues, lovers—would become fuel, lift, velocity,
his coterie in collusions, betrayals, all that was necessary
to complete the arc of his life.
It was non-negotiable. No one bargains with God.

I knew his mind, merged and mated with it.
I loved the man too, his boyish frailty,
his appetites and sensuality,
the padding softness of his footfall,
the rhythms of his breathing, his smell.
The way he beckoned me, come.

I was his wife. I am Mileva.


Women in Parentheses

Between moon-sliver scythes,
a space to make one’s own.

An afterthought, aside,
never subject or verb
(the mighty base sustaining
by the way, did I mention).

An interlude, interval, looping
thought, language, worlds seen or not.

Realm of the priestess, goddess,
the swamp-belly bitch bearing the species,

she weaves herself into words, tilts hat to sun
and steps on out.


About the Author

Catherine Arra is the author of Deer Love (Dos Madres Press, 2021), Her Landscape, Poems Based on the Life of Mileva Maric Einstein (Finishing Line Press, 2020), (Women in Parentheses) (Kelsay Books, 2019), Writing in the Ether (Dos Madres Press, 2018), and three chapbooks. Arra is a native of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, where she teaches part-time and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com.

(click here to close this window)