ELIZABETH BERNAYS
  • Home
  • Entomology
  • Writing
    • Books
    • Essays
    • Children's Books
    • Poetry
  • Contact
  • Events

POETRY

Picture
World

hurricanes of stars
spinning at 10,000 miles an hour
hang on the high wire
above the lilies of the valley
a hawkmoth is swallowed by the queen of the night
and dandelions grasp cottontails
in a valley as wide as Mars
out of a grasshopper springs an oak tree
with a chimney on fire
the wind of evolution is in the shale and shining oceans
where purple sea anemones are held by horses
where starfish gaze upon the moon
and the Great Barrier Reef ignores the sunset
there is my arm sweeping with the solar wind
there is my hair a shooting star
my aorta is Iguassu Falls
my vein is the Amazon  
there is my leg jumping over India
there is my foot manacled to a wreck at the dump                     

From Australia

I want to kiss the soft silk of your neck
And hear you laugh as
My nonsense words worm
Around branches of Morton Bay figs
Through palms and pawpaw trees
And weeds where geckos hide
Dew fall on long green banners
Of overgrown kikuyu grass
I want to kiss the warmth of your soft neck
See your eyes spark as you speak
Your words worrying upwards lifting
Feather leaves of leopard trees and
Scarlet-flowered poincianas
Here this lullaby morning
I yet burn to kiss you on the neck
My hand on your breast
Our legs entwined
Against terrible distance
The hopeless miles
Picture

Picture
Bumble bee on Rothrock’s knapweed
Earth.  In: Poetalk, Fall 2002 p2,  Berkeley, California  
Biologist Grieving In: Antipodes,  December 2002 Vol.16, no 2 p 163, Vassar NY  
Desert Rain  In: Poetalk, Summer 2003 p103, Berkeley, California
Through the Glass at Patancheru In: Poetalk, Spring 2003 p17 Berkeley, California 
Desert Rain In: Curbside Review (Jan 2004)
Separation  In: Ginosko no.6 (2007)
​Waking. In:  Dream International Quarterly,  Champaign, Illinois 
Orange Grove Road. In: Potpourri, Prairie Village, Kansas 
Kumquat. In: Bogg, Arlington, Virginia 
Separation.  In: Ginosko summer 2008
Chemotherapy Room.  In: Chest  summer 2010
Grasshopper Trilogy. In: Animal Literary Magazine 2019

Picture
Staghorn cactus flower.
Picture
Creosote flowers going to seed.
Copyright Elizabeth Bernays. All rights reserved. Photography by Elizabeth Bernays unless noted.
Web design: Cara Gibson.
  • Home
  • Entomology
  • Writing
    • Books
    • Essays
    • Children's Books
    • Poetry
  • Contact
  • Events