Hymn of the Flatland Wanderer and Other Poems
by Courtney Moody
HYMN OF THE FLATLAND WANDERER
Psalm 63:1-5
Dust covers each compass point.
No mountains, no valleys,
just monochrome plains and
a sky the color of a fountain
pen’s blood. There is no dew
to reward my wandering feet
or the blister on my heel.
There is only dust that causes
my grey matter to twist infinity
signs into oasis hallucinations.
I have seen the room of gold
and danced to the harps. I have
tasted milk laced with honey.
But now my skin withers like
a lily planted in the Sahara.
Wind scratches my sclerae
as I wonder whose bones
created the dust I bathe in
and if I am the one chosen
for the wild’s replenishment.
I ache for valleys where dahlias
blossom despite the aphids
coating their leaves. I ache
for mountains where eagles
nest among spear-sharp peaks.
My throat is full of granules.
My voice has left my lungs.
Yet I will lift sore eyes to clouds
above when the angel drums roll
and churn a chiaroscuro sky.
I will open lips more cracked
than the ground as lightning arrows
slice an escape for wet Heavens—
I will be flooded by cloudbursts.
I will receive healing in the flatland.
WILD SABBATH
Sometimes I feel God in the twilight, with the sunset fingers stroking my mortal face. Sometimes I feel God when I stare into ten million star-eyes and an owl asks me “who…who do you see?” Sometimes I feel God when I stand in a storm and drink raindrops that traveled across the Atlantic, while the wind carries a perfume I imagine as frankincense and myrrh. And sometimes I say, creation is the best preacher.
BACK IN THE ORIGINS
River waters murmur with the songs of mud turtles
composed millennia before the land needed sanctuary,
when the song of Creation was known by each creature.
The liquid highway bends into a horizon of bald cypress,
too luxurious for their namesake, leaves sewn with thread
woven together from eagle calls and orbweaver spiderwebs.
I walk and think of the Timucua girl who canoed
this pathway of reflected sky with silence as her companion.
For her, each bend was as familiar as the creases
in her palms, each ripple a reflection of her iris patterns.
For her, the great heron was a confidant and friend,
while I trespass on dry sandbanks as a stranger to her homeland.
But we both knew this wilderness held something divine,
and I pray she found a still, small voice, as I have found a portal
to recall me back to the things unseen and worlds untouched.
COURTNEY MOODY
Courtney Moody is a ballet dancer, writer, and poet of faith. Her poetry publications include Ekstasis Magazine, Kelp Journal’s The Wave, and The Way Back to Ourselves, while her prose has been featured online at Bridge Eight and in Propertius Press Draw Down the Moon. In 2022, her poem “Florida Anatomy” was awarded second place for the Florida State Poets Association Award. She is currently querying her debut novel while continuing to create poems and choreographic work before she melts at the hands of the Sunshine State. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram @courtofwriting.