The work represented here is a sample and is not intended for duplication or print
without the expressed permission of Kathleen Sullivan Isacson
Kathleen Sullivan Isacson
K L
S I
portfolio
Poetry samples
Poem for the Longest Night
We sleep,
digging our heads deeper
into our pillows
Twisting our feet into blankets,
spreading our toes like new roots.
In our dreams
we pray
to sleep through winter,
hoping
the morning sun will open
the pressed together palms
of our pale, tulip hands.
Momentum
This moment is earth in your hands.
Press your palms together until your life-lines show in its surface,
giving your sweat to give it shape
until your fingers make thoughtful furrows with their touch.
Take this moment; hold it up to the sun
and sculpt it until it is perfect in the light.
Make this moment more than untouched soil.
press it to your chest, roll it, hand to belly,
until it is shaped into a perfect universe.
With the heat of your skin it will change.
Add to it, take something away,
keeping it balanced,
always measuring, juggling its lightness, its weight.
Hold this moment only to find that you are its clay,
shifting with each change.
Feel the comforting presence of palms, fingers
surrounding you, guiding you to new form,
giving you yourself over and over again.
Unnumbered Psalm
You are creation,
passion,
the story untold,
the piercing joy of light through a window never opened.
You are the final word of every prayer that waits to be said.
You hold me though I cannot stretch my arms, my thoughts around you.
You are closer than skin, close enough to hear the words I dare not whisper.
You are breath.
You are pause and movement, inhalation and release.
You are the clock of my heart
that turns with empty hands, waiting for you.
You are the time it takes to fill a blank page.
You are the words of this sentence.
You are the languages I have not spoken,
the spaces between these words,
the letters,
the alphabet,
the ink,
paper,
pen.
