Poem-Sketch: Five Roses

Five roses in a jar

On the kitchen table

Layers of petals

Skirts and frills

Make shadows

Like folds of flesh

Four of them are

Antique white

Like an old 

Wedding dress

Tinged with

The gray-pink

Of silver polish

The fifth is paler

More ivory than blush

The color

Of old paper &

Pear-shaped

Instead of round

What is written

In the cells

Of these blooms

Whose blood

Is on their thorns

The eye is drawn

To difference

It calls everything

Into question

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Since we're spending so much time at home these days due to Covid, I've been putting extra effort into making it a nice place, including buying flowers for the kitchen table every week. And it's important to remember the people who grew, picked, and packaged them. 

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Poem-Sketch: Eggshells

Each egg is a gift

Pushed out with pain

And squawking

I dress them up

With salt and cheese

Savor each soft bite

The shells are red, tan

Coral, cream

Even blue

Together, they pass

The life they might have had

To me

A little detour

On their way

To something new 

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I get these chicken eggs at Big E's supermarket in Easthampton, MA. They're from Cold Spring Ranch in Southampton, MA and a sticker on the carton calls them "happy hillbilly eggs." They're delicious and, as you can see, beautiful. The different colors remind me that each one came from an individual. 

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Poem-Sketch: Dandelions

Spring for me
Is autumn for them
With their seed-hair
Bright as grandma’s halo
Then naked as a man
With no teeth
They say
Our work here is done
But you must keep on
Keep on
Don’t fight the wind
Use it

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I wrote this poem-sketch while sitting outside in early spring, one of those days when warmth feels new and precious. Each being is on its own schedule, all of us overlapping and interlocking like a great tapestry of life and death. One of my grandmothers had a head of white, curly hair that shone like a halo when she visited me in a dream.

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Poem-Sketch: Sunlight

Today I slept late

And missed the newborn day
With its soft innocence
Its basket of knitted possibilities

The warm light of the sun
The bright light of the sun
The harsh light of the sun
Exposes a beetle on a leaf of grass
Sharpens each blade into a knife
Silences the flowers

It started before Eve
Was framed, exiled beyond
The first of many walls

Let there be light
Meant let there be
Have and have nots

No one talks now
but trucks and sparrows

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This poem started as notes that I jotted down while drinking my tea outside one morning in the middle of May. I had slept later than I normally do, and I noticed how much stronger the sunlight was, plus how much quieter were the local animals. Instead of peaceful and warm, sitting in the sun at that point was unpleasant and hot! The experience reminded me of this little poem by Valerie Worth and also got me thinking about how power and goodness are relative and contextual. (The link to Worth’s poem is from a tribute in No Water River.) The image shows the fence shadow I was looking at. 

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