Irene Mitchell Poems

Anywhere
is the center of the world.

In the beginning
...

Lyric hardball
is to be played with reverence
in the mind's court,
a game of solitaire
...

What is it
about the stars in their mooring
that is so seminal?
...

In the beginning, love was a plainsong
heard simply as wind
rushing through hectares of tall grass.
...

Spring holds back because
I must not be led into green haven
where leaves and grasses would appall
and soft winds distress me.
...

We Are Each Other's Proof


Has it been twenty years or two minutes
...

When splitting a rock,
one must soften first
its interior until the exterior
no longer has anything to cling to.
...

There are enough spies in the land
to find, finagle, and deliver
the object of desire-
information,
...

To find a footing is to construct
a plan, one that reverberates
beyond the garden grid.
...

No grief, only gladness for now, for now
there is a porcelain clearing on fragile Earth
which widens to a wild complexity
having many angles but none sharp,
...