Scott Owens is the author of The Fractured World (Main Street Rag, 2008), Deceptively Like a Sound (Dead Mule, 2008), The Moon His Only Companion (CPR, 1994),  The Persistence of Faith (Sandstone, 1993), and the upcoming Book of Days (Dead Mule, 2009).  He is co-editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review, coordinator of the Poetry Hickory reading series, and 2008 Visiting Writer at Catawba Valley Community College.  His poems have appeared in Georgia Review, North American Review, Poetry East, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cimarron Review, Greensboro Review, Chattahoochee Review, Cream City Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Cottonwood, among others.  Born in Greenwood, SC, he is a graduate of the UNCG MFA program and now lives in Hickory, NC

13 Ways of Weather

            1

The first weather I remember
was hailstones above their screaming,
the door left open, the sound outside
like a thousand hands clapping.
 

            2

Three times tornadoes came
within a mile of the house, lifted,
howled overhead, touched down
again in a town called Coronaca.

            3

From the stone porch my grandfather
watched clouds coagulate into storms,
taught me to stand against bright strikes
of lightning, random exhalations of wind.

            4

Even before the chickens climbed the trees,
Boots, the hound from Florida, felt storms
still hours away, hid beneath the porch,
or scratched his way through the screen door.
We learned from him when to bring things in. 

            5

I have walked out alone in rain,
at night, on streets I didn’t know
and felt the shell of myself around me.

            6

I have ridden above the weather
and been amazed at flashes of light
like inspiration below me.

            7

I have fallen through clear skies
and felt the blue against my face
and thought, the sky is never empty.

            8

Pumpkin-colored skies of morning
fill my eyes like empty movie screens
before the silent roll of credits.

            9

I have fallen in love with the language
of clouds, cumulus building, cirrus
stretched across the sky, cirrostratus
running off with the day.

            10

Twilight clouds hover nearly beyond sight
like dark patches of islands lost in a darkening sound.

            11

My son comes rushing in,
his face a cloud opening to light beyond it,
his hands a cup full of rain.

            12

Hypnotic dance of snow falling.
Trees lit up with white. Night’s coat
spilling its shouldered light.

            13

The broad door of morning sky opens.
White patches of clouds roll across
a widening blue like pieces of the past.

13 Ways of Trees

            1

Summer sun haloes
the dead tree, blackens
the corpse, breeding flies.

            2

Where darkness spreads from shadows
the trees are growing wild
and dreamy, changing
from one beast to another.

            3

Long arms of oaks scratch
the sky gray as faces.

            4

The moon’s light coats
the garden in frost.
Limbs cry like cats
against the cold.

            5

Two black trees stripped
of bark and leaves
still hold each other,
old lovers dancing.

            6

Waxwings hang like leftover leaves
in the grey symmetry of trees.

            7

Night’s invisible wind blows
blossoms on bare limbs.
Sparrows’ mouths full of petals.

            8

Kudzu covers the dead
tree afraid of turning
green again. Morning
glories give it flowers.

            9

Rooting in red earth
sweet sap rises
to my tongue. The yellow
breath of trees surrounds me.

            10

I’ve been listening
to locust trees.
Their woman’s tongues
drip honey.
Their cracked voices
quiver with wind.

            11

I’ve heard the blood of brothers
crying out in the trees.
I’ve heard the voices
walking in the garden
in the cool of the day.

            12

I pick the webbed fruit
of fig trees, suck milk
from green nipples

            13

Where pines brush the clouds,
land touches air with the green
perfume of the past, something
you have lived with forever
and never known.

all copyrights belong to Scott Owens