February 2019
I don’t think coherently about anything until I have picked up a Lamy fountain pen and let the ink glide across an unlined page in my Rhodia notepad. My family, poetry, my long-running workshop, and my standard poodle are the passions of my life. My latest book, Gravity: New and Selected Poems is now a reality; I plan to travel with it this year, and hope to meet many V-V poets along the way.
Note: Here is my offering for February. February 8 marks the seventh anniversary of my mother’s death from a glioblastoma. This poem is for her. I miss her every day.
Note: Here is my offering for February. February 8 marks the seventh anniversary of my mother’s death from a glioblastoma. This poem is for her. I miss her every day.
Mother Sees an Angel at the Foot of Her Bed
Before the spill of stars
the shatter, scatter
across the hemispheres
before the tremble, tremor
before the Grand quake
when astrocyte was a word
not a word made flesh,
she wakens to the stir
of wings rustling, settling
at the foot of her bed.
The angel sits with her
for seven nights.
His country-doctor gaze
is a beam of light, comforting
her as a father comforts
his dream-tossed child.
She is lonesome when he goes.
In his backward glance
her world ignites, explodes.
from Gravity: New & Selected Poems
© 2019 Donna Hilbert
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