Reservoir, She
by Laura McCullough
RESERVOIR, SHE
on finding a generations-old Cherokee woman’s tanning stone in a mountain creek
Surely, a child
asking for bread
must be built
a dam. Safe,
her Voice an artifact.
Scraping sinew from hide
and flesh from bone;
keen, but edged
with no teeth,
our Words lay
flat in the hand.
A skinning stone.
Moss and memory
slide coolly underfoot,
my breath hovering
over damp earth like
the waters of Creation.
We are a reservoir, she
and I. More
than our moons and
bellies full of light.
I drink in
her tears and we, all
of us, wait. weight.
Smooth age
reads my palm
trailing a thousand stars;
its Witness reaping
a harvest of purpose.
DRIVEN
We sing sour hymns over
our salted earth,
furrowed and turned under,
scarce for new growth.
Hands like the mountain:
fit for the plow,
but counting years
in hardpack and
the creased pages
of clumsy prayers.
Driven parallel
more than side-by-side,
when no one knew
to tell the difference.
Warm boards and
cold plates wait better
than apron strings
for those broad hands,
still drinking in
the hope like rain.
There’s a saving yet.
Knee-deep in the Jordan
and finding our feet.
From the kitchen window, you
coming home always did
look like the sunrise.
SIGN OF JONAH
This poem is divided into 6 stanzas in 3 parts, after the 3 days and 3 nights of Christ's burial. We all begin in a place of failure and doubt, and if we will follow Him through it, will end our journey inward standing with Him above the waves.
I
“I can’t get there,” she says,
with all the weight and
failure mantling
the un-arrived.
“You’re right, you can’t,”
I rush the drop before
she deflates entirely.
“Neither can anyone else.
If there turns into here
whenever we get to it.”
My offering, the profound
wisdom of Sesame Street.
II
Fingers lightly
tracing map lines like
Braille, I wonder
at the valleys
of indecision. My own
birth a baptism
by fire. Mountains of
every there blazing
ancient before us,
I walk holding
their hearts out
for the dawn.
III
This journey to center,
a perfectly unequal
chambered Nautilus,
rooms curving down and in.
Finding here to
become what we already were.
Breaking and making
ourselves small to fit.
When the room to breathe
runs out, we must
learn to breathe water,
or walk on it.
LAURA MCCULLOUGH
Laura R. McCullough is an artist and writer happily nestled with her family in the North Georgia mountains. A “lover of faith and believer in what is beautiful,” she and her husband minister through their testimony of healing to help bring light to others.
Laura uses her writing and mark-making to explore how deep wounds can make room for the deepest roots.
Her work has been published in journals such as Rattle Magazine, The Blue Mountain Review, Solum Press, and Wild Roof Journal. Her artwork is featured in the collections of several regional museums and galleries.
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