Free Original Fire by Louise Erdrich

flowers too.
     
    Why were we given this unearthly radiance, this blueness,
    if not to seek it out, to love it with all our hearts?

Thistles
    for Persia
    Under ledge, under tar, under fill
    under curved blue stone of doorsteps,
    under the aggregate of lakebed rock,
    under loss and under hard words,
    under steamrollers
    under your heart,
    it doesn’t matter. They can live forever.
    The seeds of thistles
    push from nowhere, forming a rose of spikes
    that spreads all summer until it
    stands in a glory of
    needles, blossoms, blazing
    purple clubs and fists.

Best Friends in the First Grade
    I’m brave.
    I’m kind.
    These are our powers.
    Boys are coming!
    How about we lead them into a trap and run?
    We’re both the bravest twins.
    Identicals.
    Only you like blue.
    And I like orange.
    Remember you have to act like
    me and I have to act like you?
    Don’t kill the spider.
    I forgot the crocodile hole!
    We both can’t die.
    Our special rope tells us what to do.
    I got you. I won’t let you fall.
    I’ll shoot the jump rope over to the other side.
    The king is chasing.
    The rainstorm has heard our plan. Oh,
    they are following us. We will have no choice
    but to marry now. You will be a daughter.
    I will be the rainstorm’s wife.
    But watch out.
    The king has poisonous teeth.

Little Blue Eyeglasses
    for Aza
    Little blue eyeglasses,
    I give you the honored task
    of assisting my youngest daughter
    in her work, which is to see not only
    general shapes but specific details
    and minute variations in the color and texture
    of objects ranging from immense
    (Ocean. Sky.) To very tiny.
    (Invertebrate hidden at edge of carpet)
    Little blue eyeglasses,
    I charge you with the solemn responsibility
    of depth perception. Guide her steps
    through dim corridors
    and allow her to charge down
    the staircase into my arms
    without injury. Above all,
    little blue eyeglasses,
    train her eyes upon the truth
    and let her eyes rest in the truth
    and help her see within the truth the strength
    to bear the truth.

Grief
    Sometimes you have to take your own hand
    as though you were a lost child
    and bring yourself stumbling
    home over twisted ice.
     
    Whiteness drifts over your house.
    A page of warm light
    falls steady from the open door.
     
    Here is your bed, folded open.
    Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you.

Wood Mountain
    for Abel
    The sky glows yellow over the tin hump
    of Mount Anaeus, and below on the valley floor
    the fog cracks and lifts.
    Beyond it the throat of the river flares.
    The river shakes its body
    of terminal mirrors.
     
    I saw you walk down the mountain yesterday.
    You were wearing your stained blue jacket,
    your cheap, green boots.
    You disappeared into a tree
    the way you always did, in grief.
    I went looking for you.
    In the orchard floored with delicate grass,
    I lay down with the deer.
    A sweet, smoky dust rose
    from the dead silver of firs.
     
    When I stand in the circle of their calm black arms
    I talk to you. I tell you everything.
    And you do not weep.
    You accept
    how it was
    night came down.
    Ice formed on your eyelids.
    How the singing began, that was not music
    but the cold heat of stars.
     
    Wind runs itself beneath the dust like a hand
    lifting a scarf.
    Mother, you say, and I hold you.
    I tell you I was wrong, I am sorry.
    So we listen to the coyotes.
    And their weeping is not of this earth
    where it is called sorrow, but of another earth
    where it is known as joy,
    and I am able
    to walk into the tree of forgiveness with you
    and disappear there
    and know myself.

Advice to Myself
    Leave the dishes.
    Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
    and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
    Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
    Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
    Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
    Don’t even sew on a button.
    Let the wind have its way, then the earth
    that invades as dust and then the dead
    foaming up in