May 2022
Author's Note: I wrote this poem from Threnody on the porch swing at Write On Door County during a residency a few years ago. I am at Write On again, but I am not on the swing as it is covered with snow.
Photo credit: Donna Hilbert
From this porch swing, I look into the woods beyond the highway, and dream of you, Mother, who didn’t like the woods, but loved a porch swing, who liked horizons clean: ocean beyond a bank of sand, a backroad arrow through billowing seas of wheat. You didn’t like the woods, but loved a porch swing. O cradle of memory. Your name, Zumwalt: into the woods. You didn’t like the woods, uneasy when the way could not be seen. How did you enter then the pitch-black woods unafraid, serene?
Originally published in One Art
©2022 Donna Hilbert
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