Vox Populi
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karla k. morton: Mountain Doggerel
I open night’s window
to the long song of the river—
that opus that never ends,
that sings in fat, snow-melt operas
of cantatas and villanelle.
It must be Aramaic, the language of Jesus—
water, more ancient than blood,
the rune that hums through each body,
of lilted phrase and inflection
that scores the hot core
of the heart.
There was a woman from Laredo
translating through her daughter.
She said
she loved my poetry,
said she didn’t understand
a single word I spoke
but could have listened to me read
all night long.
—–
Copyright 2023 karla k. morton from Turbulence & Fluids (Madville, 2023)
.
karla k. morton
karla k. morton is a professional speaker, award-winning author, photographer, the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.
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What pleasing poem to read ❤️
“lilted phrase and inflection
that scores the hot core
of the heart.”
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I could listen to her all night long, too. The cadences, the sounds, the revelations of a river’s Aramaic cantata expressed through Karla Morton’s phrasings and inflection. Plunging water down her poetry’s mountain towards the bottom of the page.
And then the story of an avid non-English listener, absorbing the music Morton plays for her with its tunings and breath: her open window to the world and its score. As Rose Mary says: bathed in its sounds.
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Thanks, Jim. I love the music of this poem as well.
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I adore the turn this poem takes in its last two stanzas! Wonderful.
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I do too, Meg. Thanks.
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Enchanting poem! A marvel.
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Thanks, Therese. Happy holiday to you and yours.
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I totally ‘get’ this. I can listen to nature ‘in Aramaic’ and to poets in different languages. In London we used to go to Chekhov plays performed by a famous Russian theatre group. Didn’t understand a word but bathed in the sounds. Love the poem.
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Thanks, Rose Mary.
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