Vox Populi
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Mary Jane White: Axe
voice of Tethys
A man calling grouse or doves
The enveloping chill of the stream in that smallest meadow
Pools of shadow blurring its tree lines
Here is a hiding spot I might still wriggle into
Always the trapped smell of sunlight
& the oiled axe to split the last of the kindling
& the bank’s rippled edge & the heavy suckerfish
Steady under the running water
There it is a sunken leg
Now there is a wrongful sight
Or even the leg floating free beyond a bend
Slave to the running currents
*
The year’s hatchlings impossible to catch
Anywhere the foot splashes up down
Bodies that are wearied in the end
A white gate reflecting moonlight
Erasing the lines of curtilage
The slats as if drunken & wandering freely
The hinge worked loose from the post
Itself falling
The slatternly rise over the next boundary
Linking mine to yours
Mine to another’s
Leading leading
Always to the verge
*
I believe I am fated yes
I have a mild dampened fact for a body
How did I walk
What did I run to see
Why set my footprints where
The dust here is tracked over
At a black metal post
With swirls scuffs
This here was nothing
I believed I would have
Or have any need to relinquish
(c) 2023 Mary Jane White
Mary Jane White is a poet and translator who lives in Waukon, Iowa. Her most recent book is Dragonfly. Toad. Moon. (Press 53, 2022).
Editor’s Note: Tethys was the Greek goddess of freshwater who bore six thousand children to her husband Oceanus. Those children became the rulers of all rivers, streams, lakes, and rain clouds. She was also a devoted mentor and caretaker of Hera who would become Zeus’s wife, and Tethys was also the grandmother of the popular goddess Athena.
Vox Populi 
Nicely in tune with “The Science Behind Streams and Rivers.” Like an Echo….
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Thanks, Matthew. It’s great when we can dove-tail poetry with science.
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Such fresh, new, exquisite lines! A completely convincing dramatic monologue… Thanks, Michael.
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Yes, I’ve loved Mary Jane’s work for a long time.
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