Read Susan Smith Nash's interview with her: http://elearnqueen.blogspot.it/2014/10/interview-with-anne-higgins-author-of.html

Saliva

Even the birds have tongues.
I've seen hummingbird's, fine as a hair,
slip out to catch the nectar from the fuchsia,
have seen fledgling woodpecker's tentatively taste
sweetness
from the birdbell at my window.
Tongues sliding on saliva.

Healing water from our mouths,
healing water all were born with ,
salvia salvation, living water,
humble, intimate, vibrant, vital.

Tomcat licking his wounds after a fight,
my mother licking her finger, rubbing the dirt off my nose...
Saliva, shining my lips and teeth,
cleaning my glasses, sucking my cut finger,
Christ's saliva on the blind man's eyes.

More humble than tears,
how did you come to be flung out
of the mouth of scorn?

*************

Tribute poem


Praise for late sleeping day,
waking up without alarm,
for corkscrews,
corkscrew call of
yellowing lustful goldfinches,
butter,
opposable thumbs,
lusciously plush perfume
of viburnum
blooming in the woods
just now
just now.

*************

Named after Saints


Holographic Holistic Hagiography
Sounds like Hag Geography.
The mapping of Hags around the world.
Hags I have known,
Hags I've only read about,
But this is Hagiography, photography that makes you say Gee!
Not hags, but saints, and those
Named after saints.
Monica, model of worrying mother,
Martin , patron of the torn cloak,
Rose, rubbing pimento into her perfect skin,
Anne- in Leonardo's sketch, huge earth mother with legs like tree trunks,
Like the bed made out of the tree, the castle built around the bed in the Odyssey,
Saint Hopkins, reporting every sunset,
Saint Merton, still falling in love ,
Lucy, with her eyes on a platter,
Lucy with her eyes on the assembly line chocolates,
John the Baptist and Frank the Methodist
and Marlon the Method.
Who can tell the population of heaven?