poetry by violet mitchell

The Earth is Quiet

The sun rises & there is no camera to take a picture,
to save the oranges, reds, to print & decorate a dwelling.
Where breakfast was eaten & wine spilled, a squirrel
bathes their smaller selves, vines growing out of an old
salt shaker & encircling the nest. Moths eat oil paintings,
foxes sleep in the bed of porcelain sinks, & a pegasus
grazes on a skull of moss. No one sweeps the kitchen
or dusts the cabinets, the chemicals that manufacture whiteness
have spilled, evaporated, or been eaten. A hedgehog lays
under the fireplace mantle, reading and gnawing on a collection
of e. e. cummings. The night is darker, the stars brighter &
creatures rustle leaves under the light of a big, bright moon.
The rabbits, mice, and goats do not look at the moon or invent
instruments to examine its holes. They do not study alchemy
or erect ships to visit this cratered-land. They close their eyes,
dream in blue, wake & search for edible ground. The air is quiet
except for when there is wind, the asphalt rivers crack & fracture
as if there had been many earthquakes. There is silence, basil & weed
hanging in the air. Snow melts, refreezes, and makes the gray road gaps
grow, crack, & stand as some kind of new found home.

Singing to No One

My windows are keeping me alive.
There are birds who do not know

I am here & they climb on my tree. There
is morning light & midday light &

afternoon light & late late afternoon
light. A rooster crows constantly &

how beautiful is that—to
constantly think it is morning. 

Violet Mitchell is a poet and artist residing in Colorado. They earned an MFA in Poetry from the Mile-High MFA Program at Regis University. Violet teaches workshops with Alchemy Author Services and has had their paintings and poems featured in galleries and published with Heavy Feather Review, Word for Word, Inverted Syntax, South Broadway Ghost Society, along with several other journals. They received the Robert A. O'Sullivan, S.J. Memorial Award for Excellence in Writing in 2019.