FIVE POEMS
by Hannah Emerson
INTRODUCTION TO HANNAH EMERSON’S WORK
Hannah and I only began working together earlier this year. She is a natural poet, as you will shortly see, but needed some help finding the right shape for her writing. She also needed someone who understood how her mind and body work, as she is an autistic typer who communicates differently from most. I have grown to love how Hannah’s poetic voice is synonymous with her intrinsic voice. When Hannah communicates, it’s poetry. She is, as she says, a diligent keeper of the light. -Chris Martin, Poet
THE JOB
Plants feel in graceful
poetry that they are life.
How each life has its own
reality. Some sounds
use words. I hear
the language of leaves.
It is deep and order
soft and real. Trees
yearn for peaceful
breeze. I open
our poetry.
Its life is
early. Its life
listens. Reality
soon ours. We
do our job.
THE SUN
Really everywhere
down to killing nobody
because loving keeps giving.
From deep down to high up go inward
for light. Keep drowning keep
growing keep listening
to the sun.
CICADAS
Before you grow up shake
grow up and shout. Grow
up and free yourself to get
noticed. Please go to the tree
heave yourself. Place yourself
in the roots. You will come
out. Eventually.
THE EDGE
To be down
down look for
the grownd.
Help me look
help me go
to the edge.
Yes it is
lovely here
on the edge.
I want to go
to the edge
frequently.
It is keeping
the ground
growing now
more nothing.
How to take
nothing.
THE OCEAN
Listen to the beautiful
helpful great movement.
It keeps jumping into keeps
jumping into the jumping
noticing. I like the jumping.
I become the jumping.
It feels like the ocean is
me. It feels like the ocean
is you. The ocean is us.
The ocean is keeping us
grounded in helpful making
keeping looking greeting
there myself making me live
here. Noticing myself noticing.
Hannah Emerson is a poet from Lafayette, NY, on the historical land of the Onondaga Nation. Her work is “trying to kiss the world growing inside of us.” Previous work was published in UNIQUE Magazine (2014). Her first chapbook of poems will be published by Unrestricted Editions in 2020. She describes her work further as “reading the words of the yearning, trying to get lovely words on the page.”
