Earthwalking & Other Poems

By Karen Ethelsdattar

Karen Ethelsdattars poems, written out of the politics of the heart and the depths of the spirit, speak to the eternal questions. What is it to be a woman, a daughter, a sister, a mother? What is it to be a person? What is it to be in love with the natural world? What is sacred? Connected to the earth, reaching toward the sky, embracing family and friends and stranger and fellow creature. They sing, they swing, they dance, they bow, they stand tall. They celebrate solitude and relationship and community, nature and art.

Critical Praise for Earthwalking:

"Thank you for your most amazing and beautiful poem, "Earthwalking." Thank you for receiving and writing it, and for sending it to me. The gift of receiving words for my own half-conscious experience...Your book of poems is absolutely exquisite, a joy to read, a pleasure for the soul and the senses. I cannot thank you enough for sending it to me. I have enjoyed sending it among my friends, and they thank you, too.

--Joanna Macy,, author of World as Lover, World as Self

"Thanks so much for Earthwalking. I love the poems and their spirits. The work is an inspiration to me"

--Shaun Mcniff, author of Earth Angels

"Now I begin to make music again on the skin of the drum,
with my palms, with my fingertips,
the rhythm shivering back through me,
the beat entering
& reverberating
back up through the earth.
I walk with my fingers,
I walk with my feet.
I walk to earth's heartbeat."

Karen Ethelsdattar's poems celebrate the ordinary and recognize in it the extraordinary. They make us glad to be alive.

This is a book of gratitude for the simple things of life: a flowered summer blouse, an avocado plant rooted in water by her son, a bee and the seasons and the rain.

This is a book of reverence for life: the earth itself, a spider and its torn web, her treasured cats, her twin sister who died at 34, a daughter, a son, grandchildren, a mother and father in their last years, friend and lover.

This is a book of appreciations: for Georgia O'Keeffe and Hokusai, for one friend's painting of tomatoes and another's photographs of "the ten thousand things," for a Mexican flamenco dancer and Indian temple sculptures.

These poems play with form and range in mood from the contemplative to the passionate. They will touch you where you live.

"I walk with my fingers,
I walk with my feet.
I walk to earth's heartbeat.
Again & again
I am a woman walking,
walking to where she turns into the earth."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 29, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469104065

Book preview

EARTHWALKING

& other poems

Karen Ethelsdattar

Copyright © 2001 by Karen Ethelsdattar.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the copyright owner.

List of Illustrations:

Cover art by Ruth Klein ©1995 (to purchase a reproduction, e-

mail [e-mail])

Frontispiece, Watercolor by Kathryn Stone ©2001

#2 Watercolor by Kathryn Stone ©2001

#3 Watercolor by Kathryn Stone ©2001

#4 Drawing by Joan Zia Shapiro ©2001

#5 Drawing by Kevin Reesor

#6 Drawing by Joan Zia Shapiro ©2001

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

Acknowledgements

she’s raining

Georgia O’Keeffe

The space within

Penelope

Poem to an acorn squash

The thread of connection

The leaves

The bee

On Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa

As below, so above

As above, so below

A share of Beth’s harvest appears on my

wall

The act of loving

She’s beginning

The Flamenco Dancer

The Flamenco Dancer

The Flamenco Dancer

The Flamenco Dancer

Quartet: images from an Indian temple

sculpture

Demeter watches over her own

In Your arms

Lady prayer

the scar and bloom

Hey!

New Hampshire

Who can read

september poem

October 1970

Earthwalking

Have you ever?

Ode to my rediscovered summer blouse

Meditation

Begorra the Cat

Or

My amorous advances rejected by a

gentleman

Ode to Cherie, #2

The river

Moving

What I see & hear & touch & taste

Here in this place

Ivoryton, Connecticut

Your words

It is you I love

& love came blundering

Scissors cuts paper, stone breaks scissors,

paper covers stone

when i look at you

In the garden at Emilio’s

i wished

Today I felt a lot like kissing you

Love like the scalpel of the wind

Dance of Words, Dance of Love

Your place & my place

Impelled like a pearl to form

Take me hard

take me gentle

take me seeing

take me blind

Images of Self-knowing

The Pleasure of the Week

Getting a Christmas Tree

Woman-Child, Elephant-Girl, Bird-

Daughter

Portrait of my son at 17

Looking for fireflies

Elegy

for Nancy

For Nancy, my twin

In memoriam

Been waking to watch

Gentle the small rain

My hands are full

My father, January 1989

The Linden Tree

Great Aunt Emelia

Making play

Kevin, nearly 13 months

Is it me?

For Amy Caitlin, 6 months old

What will happen?

The matter of you & me & rebirth

on reading an account of Virginia

Woolf’s death

Leaflets

Pouring water for my cat

Four poems on an Andrew Wyeth

calendar

Joan Reborn

Joan’s song

A poet

Visibility

For those who make my poems their own

Acknowledgements

Each act of creation is a tug in the web of life, in the web of con-nection, of interbeing. I am grateful to all those who have givenme support, sustenance, understanding, inspiration, and appre-ciation.

To my parents, Edmund and Ethel Everett Lind and my great-aunt Emelia Lindquist, who have been my patrons as well, and mytwin sister, Nancy Lee Lind, all of blessed memory. To my daugh-ter, Erika Cushen Reesor, and her husband, Curt Reesor. To myson, Andrew Edmund Cushen and my grandchildren, Kevin SeanReesor and Amy Caitlin Reesor. To my teacher and first mentor,Marion Klobucher, of blessed memory. To Rev. Paul Abels, of blessedmemory, and his partner, Thom Hunt, and to Rev. Howard Moodyand Rev. Al Carmines for their appreciation and inspiration andpatronage. To Starhawk and to Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, who haveboth been sources of inspiration and appreciation. To Dr. MichaelWells, Dujo Grubisic, Dr. Ira Jasser, Dr. Erling Eng, and CharlesPerroncel, Jr. for their caring and appreciation and support. To myfriends Joan Zia Shapiro, Jeremiah Murray, Earl AnthonyGiaquinto, Rachel Tanner, Julie and Klaus Friedeberger, Georgeand Tillie Klorman of blessed memory, Gretchen Muller, LeslieDiamond, Hilary Ziff, Kathryn Stone, Ruth