POETRY
POEMS BY STEPHANIE JORDAN-RENZ

List of Services

List of Services

List of Services

List of Services

(1) SEEING IN THE DARK

When the night unrolled
Its blanket of stars 
Over
The moving sea,
Quieting its banter,
Silencing its grip
On the horizon

She breathed in the good
Of it all
As with the turtles, the lizards
The moss, the sea-birds,
The leaves and 
The slippery stones.

Tree roots made their
Way from hills deep into layers,
Mapping through, 
Down,  
Following the scent of sand 
And salt.
Their wooden fingertips bruised 
From tunneling.

And sea creatures held on
To fibrous ropes in puddles on stones
As the moon pulled them 
To drifting, watery beds.  

She thought she would sleep, 
She should sleep;
Curled in, rested out, brightened up,
Stretched wide
By the firelight of the moon
And the stories the ocean could tell,
Rocking her to sleep
Like a calf under the arm of a
Mother whale;

Drifting, 
Never drifting
Apart. 

The crabs scuttled
And pawed at her hair
As the whole earth carried on 
This way.

The scent of the past day 
Carried off, 

Across water and sea spray, 
Shells and bones,
Creatures both
Dead and alive,
Across ships and sailors lips
Where tired eyes and worn faces
Imagined 
Things soft and smooth

To other places.
Drifting. 


stephanie l jordan-renz


(2) THE GIRL IN THE BOAT

The rose spots
On her face like a leopard
Lit warm as the sun overhead
Held its rays out past the night
Reaching to her like a child 
To a mother who had
Been 
Gone 
A
Long 
Time

Beaming
Across waters where 
Creatures had
Never known its warmth.

In depths dark and watery
As the cave of his inner-being,

Cold

She doubted she was One, 
But maybe the Ocean,

Blood filled 
And nothing else.
Vapid and airy

He glided over the earth 
After work, after long 
Hours of sitting
At conference tables.

Discarding his clothes.
His shoes kicked off
And fell from depths
Like a broken ledge off a cliff

Landing in the Sahara
For the poor who hadn't 
Known coverings,

Took to them as 
Super-natural.

And the watery depths
Dried, and the tunnels and channels
Became like bedrock. 

Mystery was high above,
On wings passing over
Snow-capped mountains
And your socks
Dropped down too.

Naked and filthy
With no sense of stopping
Or noticing, 
Those below, 
Toiling the ground.

She was in the water,
On a boat
At this time

And

As the sun warmed her ways
Like a compass pointing North

She held the fins of 
Porpoises and dolphins 
And small fish 
Handing out promises,
Looking them deep in the eye
Of their being

Instructing them to keep
On swimming;
Follow the motion 
Of the sun's radiance on
Its surface
And you'll be fine.

She'd dive deep at times,
With them

To alleviate their lonesomeness
Adding courage to their
Journey.

stephanie l jordan-renz






















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