GAS Featured Poet: Miriam Sagan

 

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She works with text and sculptural installation as part of the mother/daughter creative team Maternal Mitochondria (with Isabel Winson-Sagan) in venues ranging from RV parks to galleries. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement.

Hypochondria

Beneath my ribs 

inside the bone cage 

a terrarium of topsoil 

oak root and branches 

imitate networks, veins, arteries.

Inside me 

serrated fingered leaves fall 

but not till spring 

acorns ping 

forests house truffles, caterpillars,

gall wasps 

devour the humous 

that once was me.

Birds nest, fledgelings 

fly out of my mouth 

in augury.

Whatever I’ve called myself

doesn’t matter 

any more.

Containment

The small cell 

with one window and 

one long boring tattered 

paperback, 

but no chocolate or coffee, 

is like a well-apportioned grave: 

bed, sink, toilet 

although only the living 

need these.

So what’s the point?

I’ve set the scene 

but without action, 

plot points, or denouement.

In this way 

it is not only like a coffin

but freedom. 

GAS Featured Poet: Miriam Sagan

 

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent include Bluebeard's Castle (Red Mountain, 2019) and A Hundred Cups of Coffee (Tres Chicas, 2019). She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. She founded and directed the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College until her retirement.

Judgement

I know that spring is coming,
desire in our always broken hearts,
chipped and mended so many times
like Japanese teacups
no longer the original color
but gold in the cracks
until the breaks predominate
and the whole cup is precious metal.

Stepping out from the black and white movie
to find the world in color
more vivid than before
or turning the pages of the book
a sudden flush of vastness.
These moments cannot
be possessed, traded for love
or a black slouch hat
but fall through the soft air
as if slipping from bare branches. 
like meteors, wishes, or blossoms.