Poetry by Martin Willitts

Lost

 

Geese get lost in mist, sidetracked
in heavy stillness, dew-wings
from burn-off, just around the corner
of mountains no one can see
but remember are there, reliable
as geese calling out to each other.

Some are unable to follow the lead,
break from the pattern. Their sounds
bounce off clouds and mountains.
Stillness is stirred from the low ground,
biting the air. At noon, still, no one can see.

It might get worse. It is better to sit tight,
hope for the weather to shift, clouds lifting
like a flock of geese over transparent lakes.
 

Astragalus

If you want to be a herbalist,
open this secret like a woman’s silk kimono.
You have to have some knowledge of tinctures.
Otherwise, it has no purpose.
You will go crazy trying to make cures
and it won’t work for charlatans.
If you do not know what you are doing,
you are little more than larva
feeding on astragalus leaves.

It is the natural gum Tragacanth you are after.
Twist into ribbons or flakes, powdered,
absorbed with water, stir into a paste
the size of an ankle bone. Otherwise,
it is useless. The mixture is not right.
The cure will fail the patient.
You might as well try to cure using a kimono.

 

 

Martin Willitts is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, and he tends to his organic garden. His poems have appeared in Furious Gazelle, Kentucky Review, Centrifugal Eye, Nine Mile Magazine, Blue Fifth, Comstock Review, and the infamous many others. He has been nominated for 11 Pushcarts and 11 Best of the Net. Winner of the2012 Big River Poetry Review’s William K. Hathaway Award ; co-winner of the 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; winner of the2013 “Trees” Poetry Contest; winner of the 2014 Broadsided award; winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest. He has 8 full-length collections and 20 chapbooks of poetry. Forthcoming include “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press), “God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name” (Aldrich Press), and “Dylan Thomas and the Writer’s Shed” (FutureCycle Press).