June 2021
Priscilla Melchior
priscilla.melchior@gmail.com
Bio Note: I am a retired community newspaper journalist living in the mountains of Virginia with my husband and two border collies. I’ve been published in, among others, the North Carolina Literary Review, on literary websites such as Streetlight.org and The Ekphrastic Reveiew, and won several awards from the Poetry Society of Virginia. Though I am well past retirement age, I am a relatively young poet, having just begun about eight years ago.

Cinders

I saw it as we turned to go,
a gray handprint on her son’s khaki thigh
dust of a solemn ceremony
wherein we prayed for her repose
and everlasting life, holy of holies,
ending with the scattering of ashes
and tearful amens. Then, like gardeners
shedding dirt or bakers clapping flour
from chalky palms, we brushed our hands
and turned to go, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust, khakis into the laundry,
where yesterdays are washed
and rinsed, dried and folded
before they are tucked away.

Predestination

I’ve spent real time wondering
what would’ve become of me
had I chosen to live there, not here,

said no, not yes, or trod any paths
other than those leading to this point.
In Sunday school they taught me

it was all pre-ordained anyway,
but that left me to wonder
whether choices are choices at all:

if options are simply an illusion
carefully designed to convince me
that I am in control, if even my doubts

are a mirage, my devotion a delusion
even the most zealous disciple
could never claim to own.

With the Dogs in the Woods

They are canine docents
for an arboreal exhibit
I can scarcely behold.
Four-legged forensic
scientists, they parse
the smallest iota of odor
from sticks, leaves, or lichen,
my archaeologists of scent.
A paw print sends them
into a frenzy, then demands
they leave their own marks.
On they race, noses down,
logging a census of the past,
unaware of those who’ll come
behind: cautious wild things
gathering evidence of our passing,
sifting notes from the pungent
polyphony in our wake.
©2021 Priscilla Melchior
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