Poetry is a House

For William Stafford

(After "One Home")

Ours is a North Coast home -a house we share.

Sandstone shoes walk the thoughts that make our creed.

We dance to made-up songs;

the floor is our table.

The hand-made jam labels

we paste on mason jars

mark the dates we store in cupboards-

outside, the Indian paintbrushes

​and pine grosbeaks in the morning.

​A mother black bear lunged at us

in a September dusk while we

were creek-water sneaking before

our children pulled a blanket

of Northern Lights overhead.

To anyone who looks at us

we say "Come in";

liking the ax handle of invitation,

we could say "Welcome."

(But sandstone shoes walk the thoughts that make our creed.)

The sunrise over Superior

is the tooth of a saw.

Circling our arms we swim

against the north winds.

As published in North Dakota Quarterly, Volume 79.2

Regina and Tim Gort's first collection of poetry,Year of the White Tiger, is a chapbook of collabortive poems. Now available from Two Timbers Press.