Linda Cooper
Linda Cooper currently lives in Ronald, Washington, where elk graze in her backyard. She completed her MFA at Eastern Washington University, preparing for her thesis defense in Stehekin, where she worked as an NPS Interpretive Ranger for many seasons. Her poems have been published in Verse Daily, Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, Many Mountains Moving, Willow Springs, Third Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Hubub, Elixir, Diner, and more. She also won the 2015 Orlando Prize for Poetry.
Linda holds her time in Stehekin very dear. She was a Stehekin Seasonal National Park Ranger from 1987-1989 and from 2002-2008, and she stayed over one winter to finish her thesis and watch the subtle and wondrous changes of each season.
Poetry by Linda Cooper
The Blue Mouth of Sky Addresses a Crowd
Silver of clouds. Footsteps.
Trees bend
and sway. I am trying to tell you
Something smoke and metal. Itch
of wind. The dead
Bump in your sleep along a river
of drains.
You're not listening.
Even now you turn away.
Butter Moon Addresses Grass and Pine
I am not touched by your green shouts.
I have my own concerns: the sour cries of planets and far- reaching sirens of other circling moons. Screaming novas and supernovas, meteors and stars, especially the stars, one dying every minute.
How could I possibly hear you in all that noise?
I am melting, disappearing. I do not sleep. Please
be still. There’s nothing I can do.
Conversion
The rock rolls off the hill
to follow her like an old grey dog.
She kneels and pats the head
as if it had a head
Certainly, it does not.
It is a rock.
It wags, but has no tail,
so only keens to the left and
rolls over and bounces
down the ravine. Budda budda budda
Klonk.
Overhead, snow geese speak of rain
that falls
to meet the bones,
obedient stone.