Cynthia West

Rainbringer Cynthia West

Cynthia West says, 'I follow a poem's tracks. Each nerve awake, I delve beneath the obvious, turning unnecessary remnants into windows with views to those secrets closer than thought. If I happen upon flotsam discarded on the riverbank, I carefully arrange it into a shrine for seekers to enter. An ordinary face can open to reveal clouds waiting the chance to loose rain on desert so fruit will come this year. Green curving words can be cajoled to form a tunnel into the growth cycle and how all life interweaves. Starting with random lines, I dream my way into their momentum, let them lead me out of the house into my memory yard. They direct me to the spot where I buried a sparrow when I was eight. Suddenly the ground is significant from receiving the bird's death. I stand listening and looking. Familiar leaves and grass are not the same. The spent heap of feathers in my small hand forms into free flying verse. My poems are rituals. By ritual I mean precise machines, airplanes, which convey the traveler from one place to another. Rainbringer is a road map for seekers, a trail marker for the emptied ones. Field notes, advice and anecdotes entertain along the way. The lilies I offer you have been gathered climbing the mountains, swimming the sea and bringing the rain.'