Photo: © Lisa Ridings — Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, Rotorua, New Zealand
Fire Wood
A felt tipped marker
bleeds through the front page
my fathers inscription
that would later shape my life.
A sign painters penmanship
refined the structure of letters
the shape of words leaned into one another
“To Jacquline with love, Jere 1975”
heavy –weight.
February.
The month my sister was born.
The month my grandfather was born
due on the fourteenth.
He would have been named Valentine,
born a day to soon
they called him Jack.
February.
Perhaps the hardest month…so much winter.
So many dark days
stacked back to back.
Bleeding the reserves of hope.
My mom started sweet peas
from seed, the anticipation of spring.
The tender fragrance
that would fill the air,
the promise
of new beginnings.
My dad built a fire in the wood stove.
The heat
Warming
home.
Burning wood found
from trees cut and stacked by the side of the road.
There is nothing but this moment.
Convergence. The reason of my becoming.
My mother’s sigh
forgiving the winter
cradled in my fathers arms.
We are the storytellers.
She thought,
We are the hope bringers.
A prayer or a lullaby,
made itself known
and she drifted into sleep.
Dreaming of the sweet peas
in the moist soil,
dark, musty, deep
reaching
in their way
towards the light.
The bees would come home soon.
Then morning
____________________
Ariana Harley, was born and bred in a rich landscape of art, music, and storytelling. Birthed by parents who lived and created amongst a community of visual artists, writers, and musicians, creativity was not only encouraged but a way of life.
Poems were written in her DNA by her to her grandfather, an Okie from Scottish roots, who read Poe to her mother on their porch stoop in the early 50’s. With a love of the word, she lived inside a tent lit by flashlight late into the night, reading books. Her formal education consists of a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, but has had many teachers including; enlightened masters, hobos, gutter punks, housewives, and truck drivers. Her poems have been crafted on freight trains, told to her by Douglas Firs, and written with a Sharpie on her thigh. Ariana views the world as a book full of blank pages hungry to be filled. She lives in Portland Or, with her eleven year old daughter, and three tabby cats.
