Sample Poems by Robin Chapman
Shadows
And who is it, standing
In the shadows, waiting these weeks
To speak to me,
And each time she motioned
I turned away?
For I had sharpened a knife
And cut my heart free
Of the man we loved
Who could not be in our life
Mumbled into the phone Goodbye
And now I feared
That she stood with a knife
In her own childlike hand
Meant for the wild grief
Closing her throat.
I was afraid
I’d done her an injury
I could not mendleft her alone,
Dying of hunger and need.
Or was that me?
And the woman in the dark,
The one whose anger
Had sharpened the blade?
And there’s more to say than this,
For I dreamed I walked,
A woman grown, down a lonely path
And came upon
Two dark and curly-headed girls
One sad, one sullen
And held out to each my arms.
Went on with toddlers
Slung on each hip.
Dear Ones, 12/30, Banff
Dear OnesAir below zero and still,
crystal and sky-blue shade. Light
through the rose chrysanthemum petals
makes another show. And how softly
it slides over the small stone backs
of the elephant, the dolphin,
the driftwood turtlesall of us
soaking in sun, cooling in shadow.
In my left hand I hold fear of death,
the loss of those I love. My right
hand writes. My left eye sees
the mule deer pass, the frost crystals
falling everywhere. My right eye weeps
for what I cannot have, an old love,
my youth but knowing what I know now.
I breathe for balance, for the dazzle
and sorrow, dazzle and light that link
my days. All around, the mountains
rise, the sun movesto see this
is to change, to know that nothing
in this world can stay. . .
Stones
Stack them
For fences
Chart the excursions
Of the journeying sun
Place them
Between yourself and fire
Flake them
For a knife
A chisel
Might show you David
Who brought down Goliath
With a stone
Out of them
The river makes its own bed
Ghost Moose
He moves among the trees,
White against the whiter snow,
His coat scattered in a thousand forest patches
Through the plagued days of his taking-down,
Ticks multiplying by the tens of thousands
At first it must have been
Simple itch, brief irritation,
What consumes him now;
Among the trees he moves,
Ghost already, going into snow.