Anita Tanner
ANITA TANNER {[email protected]} reads and writes insatiably in Boise, Idaho. She is a member of the Osher Institute for continued learning at Boise State University. She has had poetry published in numerous periodicals and magazines and had a book of poetry published in 1999 titled Where Fields Have Been Planted.
Articles
A December Poem
Under the dome above, we look up,
singing children’s canticles,
our own domed hearts
clutched by the promise
Traveling the Interstate after My Little Brother’s Funeral
We slow.
What is this? Why?
We ride along, our eyes,
Osmond Ward Chapel, Now Demolished
Sometimes from the thresholdof these doorswe are greeted by another self,another worldwe wish to worship, incarnationthe tithe we offerfor such a crossing: we, seeking the divine,the divine leaning toward us,fading coal of memory igniting into…
Read moreanamnesis: confronting God in the flesh
Listen the Out Loud version of this poem here. 1. a patient’s accountof medical history,a reiteration of conditionscontracted by mortality,a form of proud flesh’sgranulation over a wound,a raised tissue massdelineating impact to sayhere is pain,…
Read moreThird Place: Penitent Magdalene, Donatello
Shock of agingin a wooden sculpture—more than yearsdisplayed here,her gauntand weathered faceportraying time had its way—sunken eyes,broken teeth,parched and haggard lips. The cathedralof her handsforms a gothic archbelow her chinsuggesting prayer,her frail body embracedby heavy…
Read moreAdvent: Moose in Moonlight
Read moreCreek Skating
Read moreThey Have Closed the Church My Father Helped Build
where he sawed through his finger
now perpetually stiff,
paid three assessments
Evenings: His Church Calling
The sound burrs in my head
like a racket of angry birds
swirling from the sky.
He’s gone again;
Navel
I drive by a red farmhouse
in the setting sun. Orange morning
darts through rippled glass.
High-glossed linoleum
On a Denver Bus
Out of the cold Christmas streets
we climb to an old woman
raising her scarfed face to us,
scarred and hollow-nosed,
Chokecherries
Dark berries abound
like full moons;
the sight of ripeness
in sunstruck orbs
Deity
Who is he from the Sunday pulpit
acquiring the air of sins
with his lecture,
hell’s woes never hidden
Counting the Cost
It wasn’t the silver balance scale the teacher used for a centerpiece. Initially I thought it attractive, effective as a visual aid. It wasn’t her manner or her voice, all appealing, that offended me. It…
Read moreReturn (for my father)
Over the terra cotta earth
your truck like a cleft-foot goat
grazes homeward.
The down of trees in the hills
The Book Handed Her
Wanting to be one of twelve princesses
to disappear down a trap door
underneath her bed each night
and dance to weariness in a haunted place
Going Dark
To escape from pursuers
I flee to the car,
gun the gas down the highway.
They’re on my tail.
His Sermon
He says there’s very little truth
in the world
and he can’t wait to go out,
preach, and spread his own—
like he has the corner on it.
Early Winter
Home from the dance in a howling blizzard.
The kitchen door blown open.
A heap of snow swirled onto linoleum.
I’m entranced at the violence,
What Remains
Day rolls over,
pulling at the covers of dusk.
Lights come on in sequence
and before they go off
Gaining Darkness
Going down to the cellar
a child awakens to tendrils
of winter vegetables
that elongate like white worms.
Learning from the Land
Long after my father’s kindeys failed, I keep in a willow box under my bed the two letters he wrote to me in the thirty years since I left home. Mother did practically all the…
Read moreLily Foot
Did I hold the tiny Chinese shoe
or simply gaze at it
encased in museum glass
in the old mining town
We Write What We Want to Know
I want to know why water has the right of way
where God dwells near zenith or nadir
why you see stars better peripherally
why some people have a fear of trees
Learning to Disappear
They say there is a Buddha
In each grain of sand
We begin huge and rigid. Life grinds
away at us. We grind against one another.
Proud Flesh
Dad doctors Rudy’s leg,
torn and jagged
just above the hoof
enmeshed in barbed wire.
Miracle of Wood
—that wood could come in
that thin and blonde
for kindling
after the dark bark,
after the ax whack
and the crack
of white opening,
the stria of wood
gouging, indenting
my armloaded skin
We Were Not Consulted
We couldn’t say
the yes that would loosen
our grip, tutoring us
in doing without.
Some things were simply snatched away.
Yahrzeit
This morning I light red candles
and set them on the sill,
daring the breeze
through an open window
to tease the flames.