May 2021
Bio Note: I am a poet at heart, an avid dancer, and a happily retired engineer. I have also taught
high school English, volunteered at numerous places, and for the last six years, I am the editor of a poetry
journal, The Literary Nest.
Burning Woman
I set fire to the memories every summer all through the fall and winter, word by word I string the song of a savannah sparrow staying close to the ground foraging the buried syllables seeping through the snow and thaw them over my warm breath those little things weigh heavy on my tongue I am so tired of the harshness grating on my ear year after year, I return to the ground and polish the rough edges of words the fierce polishing—the fleeting gleam sometimes the sparks fly singe my lashes, hair on fire this merciless struggle yet this sweet song of the sparrow
Originally published in Entropy July 2020
This Spring
the poppies bloom in the distance
waving orange flags in the crisp air
showing off his breeding plume,
goldfinch sings mating songs
butterflies hover over milkweed leaves
the rapid flutter of hummingbird wings
flitting around pink foxglove
the garden glows in the golden sun
chipmunks scurry, carrying pine cones
bruised persimmons litter the grass
a lone pine uphill sways in the breeze
unbridled nature oblivious of the virus
roaming the earth at the speed of light
this just might be the regenerative spring.
©2021 Pratibha Kelapure
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL