No More But Skin and Fur and Bones
The sea lion’s eyes were glazed in pain
The morning after the storm alone
I sit with him in drizzling rain

Our rocky shore, its raging depths
Provide the stark reminder
For tiny souls twixt life and death
That death is oft the kinder

Cori MacNaughton
23Mar2000

Cool water
Once fresh and clean
Reflecting the skies
In azure imitation
A complement to Nature
In her splendour

The image fades
Distorts
With the spread
Of an oily film
And the pond
Now tinted brown
With algae and silt
Hints of Death
No longer giving Life
But taking
That which is
As blood gone stale

Cori MacNaughton
22 August 1983.

The Celtic Cross
Around my neck is often seen
An ancient sign
Of where I go and, too, have been

The cross more ancient
Than the Christ oft signified
A mere expedient
To Rome when Jesus died

Although I wear it in His name it further goes
To those whom Hadrian so feared he built his wall

The land where rivals are the thistle and the rose
Where the blood of all my forbears once did fall

As their mingling souls in Heaven thence arose
The stones within the mist cast silent pall

Cori MacNaughton
8Mar99

There is a strangeness in fog
that is palpable
and perhaps it is the strangeness in me
which responds

It is no accident I know
that I was raised
where fog is legend
and so remains
a cloying fact of life
for coastal Sunny California
is coldly blanketed each morning
six months of every year
in chilly dampness

What once was familiar
now changed
hidden within soft billows
of clouds brought to earth
the monotonous drip
from the leaves of the trees
the eaves of the roof
the rocks on the hillsides . . .
stars and planets obscured
only the mysterious moon
peeks through the diaphanous veil
lighting her shroud from above

now moving
now shifting
a glimpse of . . . something
caught
only to disappear once more
deep within the flowing haze

Yet where others find in fog
a thing to fear
I find in it a pleasure
seldom found elsewhere
for me familiar comfort
in the heavy grey mist
enveloping me
as a blanket of spirit
or ancestors

And perhaps it is this
the others fear
for the spirits of fog
can be cunning and cruel
hiding dangers
from those unwary
or disrespectful

But I miss the fog
laying low upon the cliffs
turning ordinary landscape
into otherworldly and strange

I long for the lonely cries
of the foghorn at sea
and should the sea monster come
I pray it finds
the love it seeks

Cori MacNaughton
19Jan2007

In a book of love letters
written centuries ago
I found a line you once wrote to me

and it startled me so badly
that I closed the book
replaced it upon the shelf
and avoided it for months.

It was a letter from a man
to his lady love
separately secluded in pastoral France
and I think of another letter you wrote
while I was in Luxembourg
in which you ended with the words
"Get to Paris at all costs",
and I wonder
if the two might be connected.

You loved my letters
my practiced penmanship
and humorous style
but it was to my sister
that my letters
were most creative.

Her favorite and mine,
a letter where on one page
I wrote every third line
until the page was full;
on another I began writing
on all four edges of the page
and spiraled inward.

Thirteen pages,
each different and unique
as I recalled for her
the mundane details of my days -

And then I got a computer.

And, despite my best intentions
promises made to myself and friends
I stopped writing letters,
replacing them
with infrequent cards
and impersonal printouts.

And even though
the content was much the same
they were devoid of much
of their former style
and personality.

And so it was
that we lost touch
and I was left behind
to seek you elsewhere.

I returned to that book one day
and though the words
of that long ago lover
still rang with your voice
they'd lost some of their sting.

Cori MacNaughton
(prior to) 28 Apr 2005

Wooden Bowls and Wooden Spoons
items ***** and mundane
draw me into my shared history
with my foremothers
and theirs before them

The sharing of these simple things
of chopping, stirring, baking
snipping herbs and crafting soup
smoked meat served on wooden platters
such as might have been used
a hundred years ago
or ten thousand -

Wood has served us from the dawn of Humankind
as fuel for the fire
as shelter from the storm
as living trees producing oxygen
as things of beauty and inspiration,
of poignancy and pathos

There is a warmth to wood
absent in gold or sterling
the warmth of life - still with us
and once the meat is gone
the platter will cleanse itself of impurities
with the defenses remaining
from the tree it once was
protecting us yet again
keeping us safe from the dangers
outside of the circle of wood

With wood comes the danger of fire
this danger I accept
and brave the fire I will
to have the wood with me
to walk beneath and smell the perfume of the leaves
to feel them crunch beneath my feet
to see the earthworms retract
as I toe them from the path

I want my life to end
having given more than I have taken
and giving trees brings me joy
and makes the world a better place
a place in which there will never be too few trees
to be able to enjoy the feel
of wooden bowls and wooden spoons
where endless forests and healthy woods
add to this miraculous planet of Life

Cori MacNaughton
Apr 2002

The finest singer in the sea
I heard upon this morn
And in that strange sonorous tone
A universe was born

The low melodic wailing touched
And roused me from my sleep
As the humpback lithe and languid
Made a turn and sounded deep

And as my mind awakes it turns
To whales large and small
To the snowy white beluga
The canary of them all

The clicking bursts of ***** whales
And the California grey
The fin whale speaks across the sea
To those a world away

The short and longfinned pilot whales
With whistles quite complex
The striking graceful orcas
Speak in different dialects

But it is the great blue whale
That makes the loudest cry
Though it is far too rare today
With such an awful why

But on this wondrous morning I
Am filled with joyous glee
That God has given life to whales
And gave to them the sea

Cori MacNaughton
24Oct2000