Iris Lennox

Tag: Writing

  • Question in the Sand

    This version of “Question in the Sand” appears in my collection, The Giving of Weight.

    A man kneels at the edge of the tide

    and writes

    WHY

    with one finger.

    The letters are large enough
    to be read from a distance,
    which seems ambitious.

    A message for pirates?
    For God?

    The sea,
    having answered
    several million questions already,

    continues
    with its own business.

    A wave approaches.

    Changes its mind.

    Returns to conference
    with the horizon.

    The man stands.

    His knees complain
    and then recover.

    He studies the word.

    The word studies him.

    Neither appears satisfied.

    Years have altered him
    in practical ways.

    His hair,
    for example,

    once committed fully
    to black.

    Now it negotiates.

    The wind participates.

    A gull lands nearby.

    It contributes nothing.
    Maybe because it can’t read.

    Another wave enters the discussion.

    The W loses a corner.

    The H remains confident.

    The Y,
    for reasons unknown,
    looks wounded.

    A woman appears.

    She carries her shoes
    with one hand.

    The other swings
    at her side.

    “How did you find me?”
    he asks.

    The question seems misplaced.

    She looks at the sand.

    At the sea.

    At the gull.

    At the word.

    “I wasn’t looking.”

    This answer lasts
    slightly longer
    than the W.

    The tide advances.

    The gull departs.

    The horizon keeps
    its own counsel.

    Together they walk north
    while the sea
    works patiently
    through the alphabet.

    —Iris Lennox

  • Route 66

    A bench possesses very few options.

    It cannot follow the river
    when the Meramec rises beyond its banks.

    It cannot seek shade in July
    or shelter in January.

    It cannot complain about mosquitoes,
    cottonwood fluff,
    fallen branches,
    or the weight of snow.

    Someone chose its view:
    One sliver of sky.
    The trees.
    A long curve of water
    moving northeast toward someplace else.

    When I first photograph it
    in Route 66 State Park,
    I do not yet know we will spend
    a year together.

    I am only walking a trail.

    The bench is only a bench.

    The river is moving quickly that day,
    green with spring runoff.

    Leaves unfold overhead.

    Somewhere beyond the trees,
    a train sounds its horn.

    I take a photograph and continue on.

    Then I return.

    A few days later.
    A few weeks later.

    Again.

    Again.

    The river lowers.
    The air grows thick enough to wear.
    Vines climb fallen tree trunks.
    Grass thickens.

    The air hums with insects
    so determined in their purpose
    they seem incapable of doubt.

    Autumn arrives carrying its familiar tools.

    Gold.
    Copper.
    Rust.

    Leaves gather around the legs
    and drift across the seat.
    The birds change shifts in the air
    and the shadows lengthen below.

    Then winter.

    The kind that introduces itself quietly at first.
    A single hard frost.
    Bare branches.
    A thin skin of ice.

    Then snow.

    Then wind.

    Then the sort of cold
    that makes a bright blue scarf question
    perfectly reasonable decisions.

    I walk a mile through a wind chill
    of thirteen below zero
    to take another photograph.

    The bench, meanwhile,
    has traveled nowhere at all.

    By then,
    a question has begun following me
    up and down the trail.

    At what point does a bench
    become an acquaintance?

    Not a friend.
    That would be absurd.

    The bench knows nothing about me.
    It cannot recognize my footsteps.
    It has never once asked
    how I am doing.

    Yet I find myself looking for it
    before I look for the river.

    I notice when a branch falls nearby.
    I wonder how it fared 
    when tornado sirens blared.
    I am relieved to find it waiting
    where I left it.

    The year continues assembling itself.

    Rain after rain.

    Season after season.

    Photograph after photograph.

    One afternoon I stand beside it
    and look across the water.

    A hawk flies overhead,
    followed by a kettle of vultures,
    circling.

    "Something is about to be eaten,"
    I say out loud to no one,
    and I'm a little bit surprised
    there is no answer.

    The trees are busy becoming
    whatever comes after this.

    For a moment,
    neither of us is in a hurry.

    Above the river,
    a branch sways gently in the wind.

    And light moves across the bench
    like a hand.

    —Iris Lennox

  • Slowness

    A breeze slips through the open back door
    and lifts the top page
    of my notebook.

    The paper rises,
    settles,
    rises again,

    a thin white animal
    testing its legs
    at the edge of my desk.

    The corner taps the wood.

    Once.
    Twice.

    Then the whole page
    breaks loose,
    rolls into itself,
    turns sideways,
    and skitters
    across the floor.

    If paper had knees,
    this one would be bruised.

    A pigeon on the back of an Adirondack
    tilts his head
    and watches the routine.

    I wait for judgment.

    He blinks,
    ruffles one gray shoulder,
    and looks past me
    toward an old oak tree.

    Seven out of ten,
    I decide.

    Generous,
    considering the landing.

    The page rests
    beneath the chair now,
    half-curled,
    one ruled blue line
    sprawling like a vein.

    Outside,
    a dog barks once,
    then again,
    farther away.

    Beyond the back door,
    a squirrel scrapes
    inside the ceramic pot
    where I keep meaning
    to plant basil.

    Somewhere down the street,
    a truck door shuts.

    I hum three notes
    from a song
    someone sang to me once
    and cannot remember
    the next line.

    How many songs
    have been whittled
    down
    to two or three words
    and the shape of a voice?

    The pigeon steps sideways
    along the fence,
    one pink foot
    then the other.

    My notebook waits open.

    The page under the chair
    shivers
    when the breeze returns.

    —Iris Lennox



  • Borrowed Earth

    At the bathroom mirror
    of a rented casita
    somewhere in Flagstaff,
    I discover
    half the desert
    came home with me.

    Red dust
    gathers along my collar,
    settles into the seams
    of my brown canvas backpack,
    which used to be cream-colored,
    and fills the tiny crease
    above my sock line
    where the trail
    outsmarted me.

    When I untie my boots,
    sand pours
    onto ceramic tile
    in two soft cones.

    The room suddenly feels
    like a painting,
    “Composition of Woman
    and Borrowed Earth.”

    Juniper pollen
    clings to the cuffs
    of my sleeves.

    There’s grit
    beneath my fingernails,
    iron-rich and stubborn,
    the color of old brick
    after rain.

    OPI might name it
    Jazz Hands In the Desert.

    I touch my scalp
    and feel dust there too,
    worked deep into my hair
    through wind,
    sweat,
    sunlight,
    and twelve miles
    of canyon trail.

    Good.

    Today earned its right
    to linger a little longer.

    Some people
    spend all day
    trying not to stain themselves.

    I understand the instinct.

    There are white couches.
    Important emails.
    Polished shoes.
    Entire industries
    built around remaining untouched.

    But somewhere between
    mile four
    and the moment
    I sat directly on a warm rock
    without checking
    for dust,
    my body remembered
    something older
    than neatness.

    Children know it first.

    Mud puddles.
    Finger paint.
    Grass stains.

    At one point
    I crouched low
    to photograph
    a cluster of desert marigolds
    forcing themselves
    through fractured stone.

    When I stood again,
    one palm carried sap,
    and a line of sweat
    ran slowly
    from my neck
    down the center
    of my spine.

    Perfect.

    By late afternoon,
    my shoulders glowed pink,
    my lips tasted faintly
    of salt and sunscreen,
    and every object
    inside my backpack
    had acquired
    the thin orange film
    of Arizona.

    Even the map.

    Especially the map.

    I ate trail mix
    with dusty fingers
    and decided
    the extra crunch
    only improved it.

    Somewhere near the ridge,
    a woman passing me said,
    “Beautiful day.”

    Then both of us
    kept walking
    without needing
    to improve
    upon the sentence.

    There's nothing important
    to say
    out there.
    Beauty speaks 
    and we simply listen.

    And feel.
    And I'm convinced—

    The body experiences
    some landscapes
    on a cellular level.

    Scientists eventually  
    gave the phenomenon
    a long Latin name
    after discovering
    certain microorganisms
    in the soil
    can calm the nervous system.

    Mycobacterium vaccae.
    But I think we should call it
    thereasonpeoplecry
    when kneeling in the dirt.

    Meanwhile,
    every child
    who ever came home
    with muddy shoes
    was already conducting
    the experiment.

    Back at the casita,
    the sink runs briefly
    orange-brown
    when I wash my hands.

    Dust circles the drain.

    I pull one sock
    inside out
    and enough sand falls free
    to start a small dune
    beside the bathmat.

    I hope my Airbnb rating
    doesn't take a hit. 

    The shower waits.

    Still,
    I linger a moment longer
    in the mirror,
    sun-tired,
    windblown,
    grinning slightly
    at the woman
    standing there
    with desert
    still gathered
    in every visible place.

    Tonight,
    Arizona leaves slowly.

    One grain at a time.

    —Iris Lennox
    This poem appears in The Giving of Weight.

  • What Does Paper Know of Life?

    Iris Lennox | The Female Voice 
    What does paper know
    of life?

    Only what we tell it.

    I spread the pages
    across my kitchen table,
    one hand on oak,
    the other
    on language.

    Afternoon light
    finds the margins first,
    then the staples,
    then the black strokes
    of my name
    pressed hard enough
    to leave its mark
    three sheets down.

    Good.

    Some truths
    deserve
    depth.

    The paper remembers dates.

    It remembers names.

    It remembers
    who stood where,
    who reached first,
    who kept speaking,
    who went silent,
    who needed silence
    to feel safe.

    The ceiling fan turns.

    Edges lift, but dare not
    fly away.

    They stay.
    Pressure makes some run
    and others stay.

    A throat is made
    of cartilage,
    muscle,
    membrane,
    two pale folds
    opening
    and closing
    over air.

    Pressure meets tissue.

    Even a whisper
    requires force.

    I know this.

    I have taught students
    to plant their feet,
    unlock their knees,
    drop their shoulders,
    open their ribs,
    and send a line
    to the back wall
    without asking
    the room
    for permission.

    Never ask for permission.

    I have watched
    a frightened girl
    find her stomach
    and then her voice.

    I have watched
    boys
    speak one true sentence
    without laughing
    and become men.

    I have watched
    language
    enter the body
    and change
    the way
    a person stands.

    So when the hand came,
    when the pressure came,
    when silence
    came to wrap around,
    to shut me down,
    to choke
    me—

    I know
    what a voice is.

    The larynx bruises.

    The breath adjusts.

    Once,
    I lost it.

    But don’t worry about me.

    I just drink the tea,
    bite down on the Ricola,
    and breathe.

    Shakespeare told us
    long ago,

    “Speak the speech,
    I pray you,
    trippingly on the tongue,”

    And I tripped.

    A little.

    Then I got back up.

    And spoke
    until cartilage,
    muscle,
    membrane,
    air,
    ink,
    oak,
    paper,
    rooms,
    whispers,
    and men
    who mistake women
    for little girls

    had to listen.

    They reached for an instrument
    they didn't understand.

    So I took
    what the body knew,
    what the stage taught,
    what the page required,
    what courage costs,

    and I used
    all of it.

    Outside,
    water climbs
    through xylem,
    one molecule
    pulling another.

    Roots enter limestone
    by touch.

    A seed splits
    in darkness

    and takes root.

    What does paper know
    of life?

    Only what
    we tell it.

    —Iris Lennox
    literary pen name of Jill Szoo Wilson

    This poem appears in The Giving of Weight.

  • The Miracle of Connection

    It’s a miracle when
    one act of
    communication
    takes place.

    We take it for granted.
    “Hello,” and
    “Goodbye,”
    but what about the words
    we're not sure how to say
    and stubbornly
    try?

    Every syll-a-ble
    we learn is from someone
    close by.

    The voice of a friend
    or the first time you heard 
    your grandma
    speak to your mom
    in a way that made sense,
    when she smiled
    so you figured you knew now
    what to do.

    You got it.
    So did she.
    And what about him?

    “This flower is red,”
    that much is true. But
    “This flower is soft,”
    could be misconstrued.
    “I was talking about color,”
    she shrugs as she sits.
    He insists,
    “A flower is petals
    and my first Valentine’s kiss.”

    How many words
    for one simple
    thing?
    A moment remembered?
    An idea flying through?

    And so you see,
    even flowers mislead.
    If they can
    (uh-oh)
    what chances do we
    have to receive
    or to give
    in the way

    your experience taught
    and your family still chooses,
    and what of the friends
    that come and go,
    and the fights someone wins
    and another one loses?

    Brick by brick
    the schema is built,
    and we climb to the top

    and fall
    until

    what I said
    is what you heard
    or close enough
    to be understood.

    —Iris Lennox

  • In Our Tracks

    The things that slow us down 
    can't be manufactured. 

    They have to come—
    arrive—
    without warning
    and before
    or after
    we're ready. 

    Today maybe it's a train
    rattling through your car
    and the wind it leaves behind 
    picking up the ends of your hair
    and pulling you back into 
    something
    some time
    when a train was in the distance—
    was it home, 
    or something like it?
    When the whistle of the train—

    Or a phone call 
    where the C-word is uttered
    and everyone in the room
    collapses, 
    but underneath. 
    On the inside. 
    The push and the pull of, 
    "But wait. Just one second ago
    life was about this or that
    and now
    this." Or

    a man catches your eye down the hall,
    a woman laughs with a crinkle in her nose—
    had it been there before? 
    Maybe only today
    and then a series of 
    wonderings
    when wandering is no place to stay, or

    sitting on a rock in the desert 
    not asking questions and
    questions begin
    to ask themselves 
    in the form of prayers you couldn't hear
    during this morning's coffee. 

    When does a prayer begin
    and when does it end? 

    Where was I when I was the one
    who took the breath
    inward
    to address God on an exhale
    and why am I still breathing 
    in one elongated breath since—
    when?—
    Was I seven? 
    Or forty-three? 

    And who was I when I thought
    or felt
    or began
    "Dear Lord . . ."?

    What is movement 
    but our footsteps being heavier 
    than air
    but lighter than 
    we expected 
    because the weight of now 
    never lands 
    until we look back.

    Today I looked up into the trees
    in a place I know well
    and I saw the sunlight weave
    itself through every leaf
    and all the way down, 
    just as it has before
    and there was a moment 
    when all I could do was forget
    where I was
    forget what I was thinking
    and maybe I breathed
    but who is to say

    because mostly I just
    watched. 

    —Iris Lennox



  • Languidity

    This red shelf
    was a frame

    and now it's a stage
    upon which I stand
    alongside the kind of beauty
    usually reserved for dreams.

    To gaze upon
    is different than
    to stand upon
    so I suddenly feel the
    weight of my own
    inadequacy to speak.

    Vibrant beauty steals the voice.

    Perhaps that's why
    our mouths naturally open
    in the midst of awe.

    The desert speaks for me.

    "Sit down, city girl.
    I'll take it from here."

    And so I do.

    Daypack on dirt.
    Dust on denim.
    Knees bent below me
    like a student
    poised to receive.

    The lesson will be shown.

    First
    by what bends.

    Just north of the wash
    where blue grama,
    needle grass,
    and rabbitbrush
    catch the last light
    before the canyon
    yawns and stretches 
    into the stars,

    thousands of stems
    lean west

    all at once.

    Then east.

    Then halfway back,
    seed heads suspended
    between pull
    and release.

    A gust slips down
    through juniper,
    over shale,
    between ocotillo thorns,

    and the grasses

    begin again.

    Is it a dance? 
    A conversation? 

    Slow.

    Loose-hipped.

    Unashamed.

    They dance
    with the sky
    like old lovers
    who no longer
    need music.

    Only then
    do I notice

    who has been
    watching
    all along.
    I'm not the only audience
    here.

    I'm no audience at all. 

    Nothing here is done
    for me. I'm more like a
    stow-away. But—

    Sandstone
    watches
    keeping its spine.

    Basalt
    keeps its counsel.

    A saguaro
    holds both arms
    where it left them
    the year I was born,
    suspending the final 
    clap.

    From a distance
    it looks
    like contrast.

    Up close,

    it looks
    more like trust.

    One body
    bending.

    One body
    witnessing.

    One learning
    through motion.

    One learning
    through stillness.

    And the wind,
    passing through them all,

    enjoying the secrets
    each one keeps—
    the loyal wind knows
    and withholds the details.

    So I sit here,
    dusty
    studying the grasses' sway

    while cactus,
    juniper,
    and cliff face

    watch.

    Where does this movement
    exist 
    outside this valley?

    Where
    else does yielding
    carry this much strength?

    In kelp forests
    thirty feet below
    where sunlight cascades
    and breaks?

    In the chest
    of a sleeping child
    who trusts her blanket
    to stand guard?

    In the cottonwood,
    the heron,
    the mare,
    the marriage,
    the woman

    who has learned
    to stop fighting
    every fall,
    to stop tightening
    at every pull,
    to stop mistaking
    the giving of weight
    for the losing of self.

    Perhaps languidity
    has been here all along.

    In muscle.

    In memory.

    In old roots
    and older love.

    In anything
    that has learned

    when to lean.

    —Iris Lennox

  • Reaching

    I crouch where the sandstone breaks
    into shallow shelves
    the color of old bone,
    one knee in dust,
    the other
    on loose grain
    that slides downhill
    with every shift of my weight.

    The rock is so warm 
    I imagine an ancient woman
    setting a kettle here and
    boiling water for tea.

    Emerging from the crevice—

    yellow.

    I admire the Painter
    through the painted 
    and wonder at the Breath
    and the breath 
    it takes to stay,
    in this place,

    alive.

    Four open cups
    lifting from a seam
    no wider
    than the edge of my thumb,
    petals folded back
    shamelessly
    in the morning light.

    I lean so close
    I can smell the yellow.
    Or is that the bone?
    I've never smelled either 
    so it's hard to say.

    My hair falls forward
    and brushes the soil,
    one strand catching
    on a blade of green—
    I feel like an intruder,

    slowly,
    hooking it behind my ear,
    then lower my face again—
    this time with more care—
    close enough
    to see grains of pollen
    caught in the folds,
    gold dust gathered
    at the center.

    Treasure
    left out in the open.

    A bee was here.

    Maybe an hour ago.
    Maybe it's only been ten seconds.

    How long do bees stay gone?
    Quickly,

    I peer below the bloom.
    Silver leaves spiral outward
    in every direction,
    coated in tiny hairs
    that catch dust,
    light,
    and whatever the wind
    decides to leave behind.

    I run one finger
    along the stem—

    green at first,
    then red,
    then pale
    where the shadow begins
    and sunlight
    never quite 
    made the turn.

    I guess there are things
    even the sun never sees.

    The stem narrows,
    twists once,
    then disappears
    into a seam
    too thin
    for my fingernail.

    Still—
    there it goes.

    Down through lime,
    through grit,
    through powdered shell,
    through pockets of black soil
    pressed deep
    between layers of stone
    older than language.

    Roots no thicker
    than thread
    find water
    that probably does not splash.

    I sit back
    on my heels,
    dust coating my jeans,
    my hand still warm
    from the rock,
    and watch
    one yellow cup

    tilt upward
    another fraction
    toward the sun.

    —Iris Lennox
    literary pen name of Jill Szoo Wilson

    This poem appears in The Giving of Weight.

  • Field Notes From a Splintered Bench

    I sit on the splintered bench
    where the trail drops close
    to the river’s edge,
    one boot untied,
    laces dark from morning grass.

    The wood pricks through my jeans
    only when I swing my legs
    so I have to choose between
    comfort and carefree—
    the mosquito zigzagging
    around my wrist
    reminds me to 
    slow down.

    Below me, water folds over stone,
    slides around a half-sunken branch,
    catches for a second
    on something I cannot see,
    then keeps moving.

    A world within a
    world
    within a
    world. 
    Each with its own 
    beginning, middle, and
    end.

    I rest my elbows on my knees
    and watch cottonwood seeds
    land on the surface,
    play Russian roulette 
    with the current and sometimes lose.

    But sometimes they win. 

    There used to be an island here
    but now
    only swimming for fish
    and food for one crane whose beak
    was made for moments 
    like this. 

    Across the bank,
    a sycamore leans like a dancer—
    if I tried that move I might hurt myself.
    But the sycamore—
    graceful,
    roots half exposed,
    holding a wall of mud
    through another season of rain.

    What happens here at night?
    Does the dancer feel lonely?

    I run my thumb
    along the groove
    someone carved into the bench
    years before I found it. 
    There used to be a heart 
    scribbled here. 
    Was it time
    or circumstance 
    that rubbed it away?

    Where do all the lovers go 
    who leave their hearts
    on benches
    in trees
    and in one another's hands? 

    The river keeps carrying
    branches, leaves, foam,
    the occasional flash of silver,

    and twenty feet downstream
    a man in a fishing boat
    has a pole for an arm,
    a hat for eyes,
    and a dream I cannot see—

    I stay on the splintered bench
    swinging my legs
    watching the sunlight

    feeling the shade.

    —Iris Lennox
    literary pen name of Jill Szoo Wilson