Rimas Dissolutas
by E.R. Lutken
High notes carry a short distance, still
higher, even shorter—air-splitting
winces of dragged fingernails--
quick blinks into crisp silence.
Piercing shrieks trip on grim
pediments in unrelenting time,
ricochet to whines, let go.
Remnants roam in long, slow pulls
across gray ages—low sounds lapping,
mourning Enkidu in slurred wails.
Om—mantras droning balance,
Gregorian outpourings of solemn calm,
growling, sorrow-soaked Blues-rhyme,
all thrum through flailing blare of now.
Wind rumbles, throbs within mortal hulls,
shores-up pulses, echoes in rolling
notes tossed past the unborn pale.
The task falls to re-sound chants,
send streams back to fill the world’s brim.
There now, tomorrow beyond dream,
there, there. We are the breath in you.
higher, even shorter—air-splitting
winces of dragged fingernails--
quick blinks into crisp silence.
Piercing shrieks trip on grim
pediments in unrelenting time,
ricochet to whines, let go.
Remnants roam in long, slow pulls
across gray ages—low sounds lapping,
mourning Enkidu in slurred wails.
Om—mantras droning balance,
Gregorian outpourings of solemn calm,
growling, sorrow-soaked Blues-rhyme,
all thrum through flailing blare of now.
Wind rumbles, throbs within mortal hulls,
shores-up pulses, echoes in rolling
notes tossed past the unborn pale.
The task falls to re-sound chants,
send streams back to fill the world’s brim.
There now, tomorrow beyond dream,
there, there. We are the breath in you.
E.R. Lutken, a physician, worked many years on the Navajo Nation, then for a few more teaching math and science in rural Colorado. Her poems have appeared in Cagibi, Mezzo Cammin, Think, and other journals and anthologies. Her collection Manifold: Poetry of Mathematics (3: A Taos Press, 2021) won the New Mexico First Book Award in 2022. She recently edited her father’s memoir A Thousand Places Left Behind (Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2023). https://www.erlutkenpoetry.com.