Quiet Things and Other Poems
by Chelsea Fraser
QUIET THINGS
There is hope in quiet things:
In owl flight, in tree rings,
In breathless wonder hanging
‘Twixt the stars.
In deep breaths, in wide pauses,
In sunlight, refracted, burst—
Infinity unlocked in each new breath.
Can you hear their stillness?
Within the silent rush of spring
Blooming out of dogwood trees,
In the space between words,
In the beating of hearts,
There is hope. In eye contact
Softening into a knowing smile,
In blades of grass pressing
Higher and wider in the sun,
In arms wrapped tightly,
Lovingly, around me—
Quietly attesting a future
Secure as the stars.
In deep stone, deep water,
Deep thought rippling silently,
Holding us securely up above
Without applause or noise.
In the touch of a hand on my bent back,
In nearness bearing with me—
In satin cloth, in forest dusk,
In laying down to rest,
In atoms’ flight,
In clouded heights,
In open mountain fields,
In rippling water across a pond—
There is hope in quiet things:
In owl flight, in tree rings,
In breathless wonder hanging
‘Twixt the stars.
MAPLE ME
By cross-hatched trunks
and geometric branches
circling upward,
I raise my heart,
crossed and hatcheted,
its circular beating
bearing up the trunk
of my being—
bearing up the weight
and the fruitfulness
in beautifully broad strength.
I raise my eyes,
surveying all my life
grown here around myself:
the storms and all the sun
that made me, leaf and limb,
to rise in rings that sing of hope
and whirl a green-bough dance
above it all—
I raise myself to height
to stand in fullness,
testifying by each mark, each bend,
each limb that grew toward the light
that bark is proof of the bite—
proof of a resilient life.
SHELTER #5 AT SULPHUR SPRINGS
Cardinals, wrens, finches, all
calling to the morning—
fellowship of treesongs,
dew—hops between earth and sky
bourne on whistle calls—
dappled, lilting day awaking
new, and just like yesterday—
both fresh and ordinary,
babblings through the night
looping harmonies for flying soprano libretto—
awakening ancient rhythms
with each daybreak’s aviary improvisations.
I need this music of the earth
to wind into my bones, rooting me
on life-wings—upward to perch
listening to the water and the woods
and the hope and the health
sounding airdrop to feather
to bark to bladed grass—
a crescendo of life swells from the ground
holy noises symphonic
swaying to the earth’s trochaic heartbeat
toward Heaven—and beyond.
CHELSEA FRASER
Chelsea Fraser wears many hats. She is a wife, mother, poet, musician, and arts administrator. She believes that the world and our lived experience is art and that we were made to participate in making beauty. Chelsea holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Organizational Communication. She runs FPC Arts, a ministry that uses the arts to unlock and empower the full potential of who God has made each of us to be. She has been published in Ekstasis Magazine, Vessels of Light Journal, and The Way Back to Ourselves and awaits publication in Persephone Literary Magazine and The Dewdrop.