May 2021
Bio Note: My brother and I had daughters born one month apart. My niece worked in Provence, France
for a couple of years, fell in love and married there in a small village ceremony. Unable to attend, I wrote this
poem on the day of her wedding; I had intended a poem addressed to the bride and groom but it turned out to be
addressed to my brother. My books of poetry include Crave, Appetite for the Divine, and Remorseless Loyalty.
To My Brother on the Occasion of his Daughter’s Wedding
Our daughters have become orchards,
petalled and fragrant as light.
In the agile branches brash song
and incandescent orioles.
It is their turn to be divine now
while we grow more mortal
every day. We wake to the ash
of dreams upon our tongues, and catch
the intermittent scent of accidents
and inevitable calamities we have yet
to suffer, yes, our throats swell
with the vibrato of everything we’ve
been compelled to know, but today
beneath the red-nippled trees, long-haired
meadow grasses shiver and daffodils
gesture the lithe hands of their fronds.
Let the heart twist like a flower breaking
into blossom, lasting is not all.
Bee
On the feral hillside
the honeybee hunts the
blush pink cups of applebloom
on the undomesticated bough.
The electric zum of its membranous wings
weaves a strand of sound into
the hoarse-throated hum
of highway noise, that persistent
human undertone palpable
these three miles distant.
As limited as that:
one bee in the blooms
of an untamed apple:
in the soft May twilight
the satisfaction
is profound:
this appearance
of meaning
beyond our meanings.
©2021 Christine Gelineau
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