On a good morning
I am the shaman
on a great morning
I am all thirteen of them
a conclave of fire and feathers
atop the Sayan Mountains.
I practice divinations
while sipping coffee
and braiding my syllabic chants
into crows’ shouts
I call the words gather
they descend the World Tree
I lead ancestral heroes
to the island of my page.
This morning
I am a correspondent
fumbling with my camera
to document this Siberian ritual
or worse an ill-fated Yakutian bull
bellowing centuries
as I surrender to the blade
palpable and mute.
On a good morning
I am both the knife
and the warm bowl of cow’s blood –
on a great morning
I am a poet.
Candice Kelsey’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Burningword — recently her nonfiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. An educator of 20 years’ standing with her master’s degree in literature from LMU, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.
