“Birdseed Economy” and Other Poems
As He Practices to be a Wilderness EMT
He says, pretend you’ve passed out
and you’re now unresponsive—
and he places his hand on my forehead, and says
CMarie?—
which even though it’s only us
he rarely says, then says, do you hear me?—
and I long to respond, but I lie
in our living room inhaling
dozens of years of us and dog hair and he
says in case you can hear me—
and goes on to say he’s feeling
for broken bones, for pulse, palpates
my mandibles, follows fontanelles
of my skull, to my spine. I am still
in my bathrobe and slippers, and it’s Sunday
and he says CMarie, can you hear me?—
still, I do not respond though I want him
to know how good this is, him touching me
in a way he never has and how vital I feel
and then he continues I must turn you over now—
and places his knees on either side of me
and despite all our years of fucking somehow this,
my faking, his rehearsing is so much more fulfilling. He says,
it’s Caleb, I’m here, and I’m going to take care of you—
and even as I know this is only make believe, I want
to remain unresponsive and let him
find all the places where really I am broken—
then I hear him say my name, a little more
urgently now as if resuscitating some other CMarie
saying, come on, stop pretending
it’s a beautiful day, you should get dressed,
and we will take the dogs for a hike.
In the Backyard / What the Neighbor Saw
In this we shall conspire: snow
On the boughs of the laden
Pine who, for a bakers dozen
Have delivered shade, and mottled sunlight
To this place called home.
When I was a child I believed
That each flake of snow that fell
Was a wish someone made over candles
Or through dark tunnels or as they lifted
Feet over cattleguards or spread dandelion
Seed. And if I were to open my mouth
That wish would become mine
And in some act of living I could make it true
For another. Now, I wish for the snow
To be filled with the hope of those
Non human. Let’s plan to walk out, Maya,
Into this winter morning with mouths agape
And wait for what will come. Imagine us
Conspiratorial and silent. Our hearts filled
With right doing as one by one flakes
Melt onto tongues in the language of water.
Imagine how the neighbors will see us
Crones walking maws open fish like,
Awe like, hand in hand, they’ll think
Us ridiculous and we will be
Beautiful and when in spring we whisper
The words will be damp lace and warm
two wet bridesmaids—
And we will give each other that look
That only thieves and apostles can share.
– for Maya Jewell Zeller
Aurora
Last night was a bruise whose beauty I could not stop
touching for the ache of something
so ordinary to be so awesome.
On the Anniversary of Her Last Breath
Were it not for the Mountain Ash berries turning
red in the fall, I might have forgotten that the season
would end. Where I would have to go when it was all
said and done. The light burning the earth, the mound of rocks
as a reminder. A year already and I can still feel the warmth
of her life. The sound of her walking behind me the way light sounds
as it starts to warm these woods. When we are children
we do not understand this. Passing. Endings. Everything is once upon a time
but once is future tense, possible. Believable even.
Older, that opening line is redundant, comes back like she never will:
a reminder that I will someday be cradled in the lap of a beloved
their hand stroking my hair that their tears have drenched.
I whispered come back to me as she took her last breath
and here she is, a bright orange berry, the sun behind smoke.
Birdseed Economy
I have done something to offend
the birds. Perhaps it was the sale seed I purchased—
such a deal! Even the birds drive
the economy. Now I will have to spill it
in the hollowell that divides the mystery
of this little copse of forest and the certainty
of the asphalt highway below. Deer
aren’t nearly as picky. They’ll take
whatever they can get in these winter months,
in this place where, just over the invisible line
from county to city, it is illegal to feed them.
Illegal to feed deer. What strange laws this
place where it is still legal to pay less than living
wage. I tried mixing in a more expensive seed
which the birds, now only red-breasted
Nuthatch, quickly sorted out. No fooling
them. They understand quality. I’d say
they are starting to sing like the proletariat
that live across the other line, a white fence,
which divides the affluent and us—
but I think that all they want is like the rest of us:
to know we can have a good meal,
be safe from oncoming traffic, and have
no lines drawn between good and bad
Or have and have not.
CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Salmon Weather: Writing from the Land of No Return and Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems, and co-editor of Cascadia: Art, Ecology, and Poetry and Native Voices: Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations. Her poetry and nonfiction have been published or are forthcoming in multiple journals and anthologies. CMarie is an award-winning columnist for the Inlander and Director of the Elk River Writers Workshop. She is Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Western Colorado University, where she teaches poetry and nature writing. CMarie is the host of Terra Firma. She resides in the Salmon River Mountains of Idaho with dogs and wilderness.