Esther Ra

ars poetica

wake up! i trumpet to the poems fast asleep

like ground squirrels under the snow

            so many lines leap through the air

            & my soul spins around at each one

what is the use of poetry

if it cannot lift the spirit from its shell

or deepen the rich silence of the lilies

            this is poetry     the night lamps winking on

            one by one     soft stars on a pale blue street

& this is poetry: the lemongold

daffodils    strips of sunlight

on the faceless corpses in the fridge

            & poetry: what dies unsaid with prisoners

            who are stoned with their mouths full of rope

& the flowers dostoevsky bought for his wife

with the few roubles he hadn’t gambled away

            & the long lines of mothers waiting

            to clothe their babies in clean diapers

& my mother’s first laugh, as pure as the sound

of glass raindrops after a drought

            & the wheat fields, a lion’s mane shaking

& the river whispering come run with me

            & the first cat i fell in love with

& the first dog

            & on new year’s eve it was raining cats & dogs

            when my sister & i ran through the sleet

            she kept tilting the umbrella my way so i wouldn’t

            get wet her icy fingers closing over mine

            we were so young    so lost     in these dark foreign streets

            where we ran nearly crying with fright

then boston harbor burst onto our sight

                        the fireworks

                        were a thousand night lamps        exploding

            like a window broken to bright shards

                        daffodil flare       fistful of     flowers    &  laughter

& wasn’t that also poetry?

            God is a poet & the world is His poetry

                        all creation declares His majesty

i will never write a line more lovely

                        than the deep, open face of the sea

Spring Cleaning

Reluctantly, my room yields its long-ignored secrets,

the inner recesses of its embarrassed and dust-thick

privacy—bared open in the fresh, cold air.

Sleeves of sunlight and silk wind waft

through emptied drawers, the open fridge.

Baptizing the sauce-crusted egg tray

with a flood of hot water and soap,

I watch the clouded glass grow clearer,

more radiant, clean arms ready to cradle

their water-pearled, berry-bright storage.

Arms deep in the swelter of my unending sins,

I jerk open the shelves of my winter soul.

Darkness, in which sadness spun its webs.

And now, this hard scrubbing. This coming of spring.

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Esther Ra is a bilingual writer who alternates between California and Seoul, South Korea. She is the author of A Glossary of Light and Shadow (Diode Editions, 2023) and book of untranslatable things (Grayson Books, 2018). Her work has been published in Boulevard, The Florida Review, Rattle, The Rumpus, PBQ, and Korea Times, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize, Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Award, 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, and Sweet Lit Poetry Award. Esther is currently a J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School. estherra.com