Presenting the poetry, books, and photographs of Nancy Wood, 1936-2013
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood
I wish the quiet heart.
Forced to choose a separate world
I crawl in order to stand alone.
I wish the quiet heart.
An exile from my borrowed land
I search for a place to call home.
I wish the quiet heart.
I wish the quiet land.
All around me quiet.
All around me peaceful.
All around me lasting.
All around me home.
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood
I give to you this life
which is not the only life I have.
I am the forest living and dying.
I am the melancholy of falling leaves.
I am eternity in green.
I am water flowing strongly
Not in the lifetime of one man only
But down the rocks of generation
Across old deserts of humiliation
I run in anticipation toward the sea.
I give to you this life
which is the outer garment only.
I have clothed myself in riches
Sewn by hands in praise of home.
I am made of pollen and wings and bone.
I am wind reflected in moonlight.
I am ice crying out for food.
I am fire embedded in stone.
I am fields released by sun.
I give to you this life
claimed by what I do not own.
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood
To live one must make a living.
In making a living we lose our faces
And see instead the images
Of what we have become.
If only
If only
Life did not become a business.
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood
What remains beyond us to know
Is sought as meaning and reason
And the obsession to open the universe
Is excused as understanding nature.
In order to use life well
We must surrender our importance
And open ourselves to nature
To discover the universe there.
From War Cry on a Prayer Feather, 1979, by Nancy Wood
There are those who hear the voice of wheels
And call it music.
And those who hear a symphony
In butterfly wings.
There are those who ride a highway
And call it beauty.
And those who follow the straight line
Of a spider’s silver thread.
There are those who define living
As existence only
And those who cannot live
Except to define existence first.
There are those who run in circles
And those who simply run
And those who find movement
In the greatest stillness.
Go one way or the other.
Fight for wheels or butterfly wings.
Travel on highways or spider threads.
Take up the cause of movement.
Bury stillness with the dead.
Abandon home for the popular place.
Kill the roots by girdling the tree.
Those who know the greatest comfort
Take not the greatest ease.
Those who prosper most
Prosper more with less.