New!
Container
Gardening

read poems

Ordering info

Click here
to read
reviews and excerpts from
Afterwords.

 

future perfect

like untracked snow
the pages wait
the days aligned
in black and white
boxed like small gifts

the leisurely rounds of
full moons and crescents
turns of
equinox and solstice
weave through
the weft of the months and seasons

we are past dancing
at the turning of the earth
past burning junipers
into holy incense
past bearing shaking sacrifices
to the altar
our eyes lifted toward the moon

still the primal rite
owns my heart
bereft of wand or chalice
for the risky passage
bare under the guardian stars
I clutch my private totems

I pause on the brink
the sacred pages whispering
through my fingers
like the breath
before the curtain rises

I think of my new book, Container Gardening, as a collection of poems about about what is perishable, what endures, and what makes us who we are. After my first book, Afterwords, which dealt very specifically with loss, these speak of how we pick up the pieces and go on to create the private and public worlds we inhabit

Click here to read reviews and excerpts from Container Gardening.

My book, Afterwords, is a collection of poems about loss and the journey back. The writer Ken Foster has said there may be just one universal story: somebody lost something. Afterwords, too, tells a story of loss, but these poems are reminders that the "afterwords" can also speak of surviving with what remains.

Click here to read reviews and excerpts from Afterwords.

CenterPiece is a one-person play I have written and that I perform. It looks at the patchwork of life experiences we all share, from assimilating out family legends to learning about love and loss to finding our own voices and moving into the center of our lives. Click here for more info.
The Painting on the cover of Afterwords is by Eric Sealine.
The painting on the cover of Container Gardening is by Faith Hochberg.
 

homesteading

lost language

grace

figure and ground

ether

Container Gardening

Distant Relation

Fortune

See on www.ellensteinbaum.com

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©2004 Ellen Steinbaum

My photo on the home page is by Peter Urban.
The cover of my book, Afterwords, was designed by Kate Misail.

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