Heidi Elizabeth Blankenship is a poet, artist, ranger, and editor. She was born in northern Utah and grew up in Wellsville, Utah. She received a BS in English, Literary Studies from Utah State University in 1997 as well as an Area Studies Certificate in Literature, Culture, and the Environment. After college, she became a ranger and has worked for state and federal agencies on the Colorado Plateau and in the Sonoran Desert. In 2018 she became the poetry editor for Deep Wild Journal: Writing from the Backcountry. Heidi is the author of two books of poetry, Memorizing Shadows: Inspiration from the Arizona Trail (Shanti Arts, 2017) and Stone Wishes On the Colorado Plateau (Legacy Book Press, 2019).
Works
Stone Wishes
Stone Wishes
No water nurses the banks
of the Muddy River.
Dust swells
from the parched riverbed,
fills the crusty tracks
of bighorn sheep,
cougars,
and wild horses.
Shallow pools
tucked into the shadow
of boulders
hold the diaphanous last breath
of dozens of minnows.
No clouds crease the horizon,
and in the rising heat
we cast stone wishes
for blood
and rain.
“Stone Wishes” appears in Stone Wishes On the Colorado Plateau (Legacy Book Press 2019) and first appeared by a different name in Desert Voice, Fall 2012, Vol. 2
Listening to Bees
Listening to Bees
How do we fix all the things that are broken?
I’m not asking about window screens
or bathroom doors
or flat tires.
How do we fix
important things
like broken hearts
cracked into
aching chasms,
or an argument with your mother
the week before she dies,
or the moment requiring
more words or less,
or maybe an action—
too late?
The bees in my yard
land on the lips
of the red aloe flowers
and crawl in
head first,
disappearing completely
within those hollow
ruby walls,
then emerging again,
as though re-birthed.
Perhaps that is the way
of things,
crawling deep inside
a beautiful space,
extracting all
there is to know,
then re-emerging.
“Listening to Bees” appears in A Walk with Nature: Poetic Encounters that Nourish the Soul (University Professors Press, 2019) Moats, Sebree, Hoffman, Beltman, eds.
Climate Change
Climate Change
Truth smacks the window
on the beak of a white-crowned sparrow,
enters through glass, dusts himself off.
Outside, the stunned sparrow puffs his feathers,
closes his eyes, steadies himself.
The spirits of every bird
ever to hit glass
fill the room.
Suffocated by feathers,
Truth moves to the kitchen.
Why did René Magritte paint
canvases of windows?
Outside in; inside out.
Beauty surrounds, engulfs.
Is it inside of our heads or out?
Can it fit in the living room?
Truth fondles a ripe tomato,
slides between the bananas,
squeezes through the Brita filter
and floats patiently on still water.
The sparrow scoots left, scoots right, stops.
Thousands of spirit birds fluff their feathers in unison
with a sound akin to a flash flood
ripping down a dry wash.
They chirp suddenly, gain confidence,
and sing their dead songs.
Magritte's Human Condition
hangs on the wall near the window.
Trust me, if I could, I would
paint similar surreal strokes:
a woman full of sky,
suited men floating
like clouds,
a landscape in front of a window.
Is it true that humans will not value something
unless they have created it themselves?
Sparrow opens his eyes wide,
then darts into sagebrush,
chased by the spirit birds
who launch through the front window,
shattering glass in their haste.
There is no choice but to sweep up after them,
sliver by sliver,
with cold hands.
“It is time,” Doug Peacock said
many years ago in Salt Lake City,
“to speak the truth from your heart
and to fight like hell.”
Truth pours out of a teapot.
There is a cup on the table.
Will you drink?
“Climate Change” appears in Stone Wishes On the Colorado Plateau (Legacy Book Press 2019) and first appeared in Manifest West #7, September 2018.
Dripping Palace
Dripping Palace
Red stone
burns
with its own heat.
A shaft of light
ignites cottonwood leaves
and thousands of diamonds
dripping
ledge after ledge
to moss, fern,
columbine.
Reabsorbed,
sliding,
they drip again
falling
to mud, stone, pool.
Silence
and spring water music,
the tune of genesis
entwined with the scent
of wet earth.
I close my eyes.
All around,
dripping.
It saves me.
“Dripping Palace” appears in Stone Wishes On the Colorado Plateau (Legacy Book Press 2019)
Bibliography
- Stone Wishes On the Colorado Plateau, Legacy Book Press, 2019
- Memorizing Shadows: Inspiration on the Arizona Trail, Shanti Arts, 2017
