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Anything but the Kitchen Sink The kitchen sink confronts me: “I need cleaning!This is your job that you’ve committed to!” Yet I shrink from it. The pleasure of having it shinein all its stainless splendor,to have the goo all gone—gives way to grudging acceptance that cleanis a fleeting condition, and needs repeating in a week. If I could make a prayer of it,a mindful meditation, I’d see the gleam and gooas part and parcel, the do-si-doof emptiness and form,and my elbow greasea partner in the dance.
Moving Mountains Today Mount Blanca’s bulk on the southern horizonseems larger, nearer, as if it tookthree giant steps forward, toward me.Now, in early spring, still bearing snow,the Sangres cozy up to Crestone,prayers and practice spreadingout and up from temples, ashram, chapel.In return, the mountains stir the sky,coaxing lenticular clouds to form,like stacked platters, enfolded ovalssuspended over spikey peaks.In summer they’ll retreat toward Westcliffe,releasing snowmelt to the creeksand shrinking into grayagainst unarguable blue.Manifesting, against all evidenceand intuition, that even this,a mountain range, is a living,moving thing, to the mind.
Sharon Corcoran is a native of St. Louis now living in southern Colorado. At Washington University in St. Louis she studied psychology and linguistics as an undergraduate, and completed an MFA degree in writing there. She has worked in the arts and in a university setting, and as an editor and book indexer. She also translated (from French) the writings of North African explorer Isabelle Eberhardt in the works In the Shadow of Islam and Prisoner of Dunes published by Peter Owen Ltd., London. Her poems have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, River Styx, Canary, The Buddhist Poetry Review, One Art, and Sisyphus, among other journals. Her collection of poems is called Inventory, published in 2018.
Moving Mountains Today Mount Blanca’s bulk on the southern horizonseems larger, nearer, as if it tookthree giant steps forward, toward me.Now, in early spring, still bearing snow,the Sangres cozy up to Crestone,prayers and practice spreadingout and up from temples, ashram, chapel.In return, the mountains stir the sky,coaxing lenticular clouds to form,like stacked platters, enfolded ovalssuspended over spikey peaks.In summer they’ll retreat toward Westcliffe,releasing snowmelt to the creeksand shrinking into grayagainst unarguable blue.Manifesting, against all evidenceand intuition, that even this,a mountain range, is a living,moving thing, to the mind.
Sharon Corcoran is a native of St. Louis now living in southern Colorado. At Washington University in St. Louis she studied psychology and linguistics as an undergraduate, and completed an MFA degree in writing there. She has worked in the arts and in a university setting, and as an editor and book indexer. She also translated (from French) the writings of North African explorer Isabelle Eberhardt in the works In the Shadow of Islam and Prisoner of Dunes published by Peter Owen Ltd., London. Her poems have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, River Styx, Canary, The Buddhist Poetry Review, One Art, and Sisyphus, among other journals. Her collection of poems is called Inventory, published in 2018.
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