A 2014 interview with Luci Shaw published in Image Journal
Two poems by Luci Shaw
“You”
You rinse your hands, hand over hand,
and shake the water off. It rains.
You toss your head, and each blazing hair flings
a cloud of crystals. Snow drifts rise in our yard.
You whistle, and whirlwinds spiral,
rearranging the dust of the Great Plains.
Breathing, you excite the ocean;
your waves lick our shores and retreat, like You.
You blink your eyes in what is for you
a nano-second. The planet goes dark.
You thump the drum of firmament;
we hear an affirmation of thunder.
You listen for us as we listen for you.
A thin membrane tears. Sometimes.
“December the 95th Year”
Last night I lay awake and practiced
getting old. Not difficult,
but I needed to teach myself to love my destination
before I arrive.
I feel the earth shifting under me. My writing hand
shakes—its rubbery nudges clumsy,
my mind going slack, the way a day
will lose its light and give itself to darkness,
and that long, nocturnal pause of inquiry—
What next? And how long before light
reopens her blue eye? And will I need to learn
a new language to converse with my Creator?
So, I am a questioner, one who waits, still,
to arrive somewhere, some bright nest where
a new language breeds that I can learn to speak,
unhindered, into heaven’s air,
somewhere I can live a long time,
and never have to look back.