Tere Sievers: "Hear the Water's Music"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is only one way, aging beauties,
to go down this river,
to hear the water's music over the rocks,
to find a loving I, Thou, Who.
I say, spring out of the boat,
jump in naked, tender,
with your ferocious heart torn open.

"Hear the Water's Music," by Tere Sievers. © Tere Sievers. Text presented here by poet submission.

Art credit: Untitled photograph by Daniel Balda.

Tere Sievers: "These Things A Prayer"

As a child, I had a patron saint,

St. Theresa of Lisieux, the Little Flower.

the saint of small things:

a washed dish, raked leaves,

clothes hung on the line,

these things a prayer.

Sometimes I remember

that my life is like all others,

the past gone, the present here,

the future, what future?

Sometimes I remember

to look for the present

under the pepper tree.

There I find a green prayer

in the rustle of leaves,

a brown one, as silent bugs

burrow in dry earth,

or white, like the cat,

stretched warm in the sun,

still, on the stone wall.

"These Things A Prayer" by Tere Sievers. Published here by poet submission. © Tere Sievers.

Art credit: St. Theresa of Lisieux as a child by unknown photographer (originally black and white).


 

Tere Sievers: "July Rain"

The sudden storm

flashes and rumbles

the ozone air a tonic

for the humid afternoon.

I stand waiting

at the screen door

as the hard rain digs

puddles in the dirt.

I remember young Julys,

the mud under my feet

thick, warm and soft.

The cloudburst passes.

I push open the door,

smell the air

and drop my shoes.

"July Rain" by Tere Sievers, from Summer: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry and Prose, edited by Melanie Villines, Joan Jobe Smith and Eddie Woods. © Silver Birch Press, 2013.

Photography credit: Unknown (originally color).