Ethel Mortenson Davis

A Gatherer Ethel Mortenson Davis

A Gatherer, of Days and Lights and Secret Places is a new collection of poetry and accompanying abstract pastel art by Ethel Mortenson Davis. It contains 56 new poems and 12 art reproductions. In all of Davis's books images in the poems are intense, the language describing them so condensed and essential that each shines like a diamond. The contents of the poems intermingle the earth's beauty with comments, sometimes caustic, about the human experience. As one critic noted, she is a clear-eyed visionary who observes the world around her and reveals to us what she sees in powerful poems . . . that are nothing short of mystical. If the poems are spare in structure and economical in language, as another critic said. Her pastels are a vibrant swirl of color and shape that engulf the senses with a richness that seems sinful. Together, the poems and the pastels accentuate each other in ways that inspire new meanings and feelings, shifting like the interplay of light and shadow one experiences in a long walk through a woods.

A poem like The Gatherer illustrates the intensity of her images and the mystery of the wild woman in the wilderness as she gathers in the richness of the earth:

The Gatherer

He is not just a gatherer
of ripened berries and roots,
plants of every kind,
but a gatherer of days
and lights and secret places
where treasures abound.

He's not just a gatherer
of summer strawberries,
blueberries, and blackcaps,
the northern red cranberries,
but a gatherer of open spaces,
a quiet still hill,
and a meeting at last
of his wild woman.

She is there in the blanket
of golden chanterelles
among the deep pockets of the forest
where he finally ravishes her
with kisses to her mouth
and blowing hair.