July 2021
Maryann Hurtt
mhurttds@excel.net
Bio Note: Now retired after thirty years working as a hospice RN, I am constantly reminded of the ways folks make sense of difficult times. A patient’s wife gave me marigold seeds years ago and now they are in their 5th season. Finding ways to reorient yourself after huge changes is daunting but always inspires me. My chapbook, River, celebrates such resiliency.

After the Bloom

your wife taught me
how to harvest tiny seeds
they sleep over winter
then come spring
we welcome them back
where now on this July day
I know the joy
of orange
and you 
your bloom long gone
but still such light

I Believe in Common

the way my mother reserved simple
to be a compliment
like those most basic of things
say
dirt salt bread
unadorned no pretense common man
common merganser
the way I feel when I watch a mother
merganser push her babies
over and over up the creek’s rocks
an act of simple perseverance
the patience of common
the way it keeps the world spinning

Reoriented to Time, Place, and Person

when she moved to the city
the farm and oversized garden
no longer doable
the sun almost lost 
in a confusion of cement and grit
some inner compass
kept her oriented
same as the Christmas cactus
blooming red
she knew to water
turn to the light
speak Cactus
celebrate
©2021 Maryann Hurtt
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