Bearing Witness
I wonder why live in pain, then
know I stay alive to speak of
neglect, earth and man unhinged.
Be warned. I bear witness.
The storms are coming.
They will keep coming
The splendid Monarch butterfly
—and her host the bright milkweed plant—
will be harried by man’s assaults.
The bee poisoned in its
sacred act to pollinate will disappear—
and man and beast starve and perish.
Be warned. I bear witness.
The waters are swelling.
They will keep swelling.
The once abundant shining fish,
glorious food, dying in toxic seas
or strangled, trapped in plastic.
The thirsty earth, its droughts and flames
Grifting black ash, consuming towns,
and homes, scourging lives, histories.
Be warned. I bear witness.
The squalls are rising.
They will keep rising.
I have seen nature unbound.
The furious winds are bearing down.
Wake up, will you—with me, now?
Be warned. I bear witness.
The storms are coming.
They will keep coming.
An Atlantic Cold Front Grips the Peninsula
The water’s summer sheen has turned
dull as unwashed glass,
waves cresting only to flatten
against the seawall,
overburdened by wind.
The man who walks the shore each morning,
a reddened sailor schooled in the coast’s whims,
gives in,
benches himself near the wall.
From a house on our block
my mother cries,
“God nothing more. Give me no more.”
And no one comes running to find her,
the way some surround a sea turtle,
its flippers rigid,
stuck in the rock’s crevices.
A Lifetime
for David Scott
You with your bright grin, the way you
read Yeats’ “The Second Coming.
The way you chewed your pencil,
while writing a poem. My heart in flames.
Your wild, wiry corkscrew
curls spiraling on your forehead.
Your I-don’t-care camouflage pants,
crumpled shirts and tees, scuffed shoes.
Girls were wild for you.
Hitch-hikers cross country– on a
road trip–you proposed in Texas.
I refused, not saying it was the drinking.
They raised me not to tell the truth.
You wanted a child, but mother
warned me of a life of struggle.
Her crying mother, drunk father.
The Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The fire, my rushing blood: we were life.
I went to grad school, studied hard.
You went to Seattle, milked cows.
I dreamed of you among forests,
the roaring winds, the shaking trees.
You wrote — I ignored your letters.
I can’t find you now.
The fire burned incandescent.
Our blood as one, once but not forever.
It was still a life of struggle.
Origins, at Sixty-Five
It began as sand in my shoe, this love,
an irritant—hard, gritty, abrasive,
inconvenient, a demand. I shook the
grain out into my hand, ancient yet bright,
polished and buffed by the seas. I witnessed
creation, the universe expanding,
heard your promise – “I am always with you”
I put my full weight down now, held up by
love which you spread before me, heavy and
soft, undulating dunes of sand, a fine
carpet, brightest hues, prismatic glitter.
The violet dawn, spears of an awakened sun.
Moira J Saucer @MJSEyesOpened is a disabled poet and visual artist living in the Alabama
Wiregrass. She is the Managing Editor of Ice Floe Press, and holds an MFA from the
University of Arkansas, (Fayetteville) Creative Writing Program and an MA in English from
the University of Delaware. Moira worked for nearly two decades as a p.r./communications
executive and professional writer editor. Her poems have been published by Burning House
Press, Visual Verse, Mookychick, Fly on the Wall Poetry Press, Failure Bailer, Ice Floe
Press, and others. Her debut collection, tentatively titled The Hungry Heart, is forthcoming
in 2021 from Ice Floe Press
Fevers of the Mind 
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