Poem Note:  Starting off, I confess to an obsession with martinis (once I got older and my taste buds gained an appreciation for bitter). There are not one but two martini poems in this volume, and another one in my new manuscript; extensive research was done! In doing so, I stumbled over the marvelous quotes embedded in this poem, which I felt had to be boxed in a sonnet after I found the epigraph. Some years ago, in a paper for a symposium at the West Chester Poetry Conference, I coined the term “semi-formalist” to describe those of us who aren’t New Formalists, but who do write in received forms from time to time.

     The only American invention as perfect as a sonnet.
     H. L. Mencken

The cold shimmer of a glass of gin,
kissed with vermouth.  Or, as Noel Coward
said, waved in the general direction
of Italy.  E. B. White called it the elixir

of quietude.  Louis Buñuel: a reverie in a bar.
Let the molecules lie sensuously, calm
on top of one another, stirred
not shaken wrote Somerset Maugham.

Let’s not forget the olives, groups of three,
sinking beneath the horizon of the glassy sea.
                        

Poem Note:  I think of myself as primarily a lyric poet, someone whose work is based on observations of nature. This poem was written at one of my many residencies at The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (the VCCA), where I spend a lot of time outdoors, either sitting under a tree writing or walking back and forth to the studio.

Cold morning, November, taking a walk,
when up ahead, suddenly, the trees unleave,
and thousands of starlings lift off, an immense
river of noise; they braid and unbraid themselves
over my head, the gray silk sky embroidered
with black kisses, the whoosh of their wings,
their chattering clatter, patterns broken/formed/
reformed, a scarf of ragged ribbons.  Dumb-
struck, mouth open, I say holy and I say moly.
And then, they're gone.
                        

Poem Note:  I also seem to be a writer of food poems; this one also allowed me to bring in concerns about climate change. I have three grandchildren, so fears for the future are very much on my mind. Since writing and publishing this poem, Land O Lakes has removed the image from their box, making the poem somewhat anachronistic.

Butter!  Give me butter!  Always butter!
~Fernand Point, French chef

Kneeling on green grass beside the still
blue water, an Indian maiden— or should I say
Native American Woman or First Person—
holds out a yellow box of butter as if it were
treasure. And she's also on the box, which turns her 
into one of those endlessly repeating images
in a convex mirror, beloved by Renaissance
painters.  Behind her, there's a large red O,
the sun also rising.  Even the sky is pale yellow,
thick as Irish cream.  In this, the age of low-fat
cholesterol-watching, butter has been shunned.  
We've forgotten the pleasure of a single pat 
turning liquid, a golden lake atop a small hill
of mashed potatoes.  The gilding of a slice
of raisin toast, or the slow sinking into the crevices
of a Thomas's muffin.  During the war, butter
was rationed.  My mother bought oleomargarine,
which came in white blocks.  We helped her knead in
the dot of red dye, which restored it to dairyness,
let us imagine it might have come from a cow,
not a chemist.  Now we live in a time of plenty, 
where supermarkets are fully stocked; can't imagine 
lining up for hours only to find that there's nothing left, 
that no matter how many dollars you have, it's not enough,
there's nothing to buy. And yet we know, or should know, 
what's coming, as we ignore the warnings about climate change:
drowned cities, crop failures, scarcities.  Somewhere in the future, 
a small girl will unearth this box as she sifts through garbage, 
looking for treasure.  She will sound out the word 
with something like wonder.  She will ponder "sweet," "cream,"
"salted," try to imagine the taste, something rare and wonderful 
from the world that disappeared.
                        

Poem Note:  Another area I’m drawn to in poetry (forgive the pun!) is ekphrasis. Many of my ekphrastic poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual (thank you, Firestone, for giving them another outing and pairing them with the paintings they refer to). This one was written at a residency in southwestern France, at the Moulin á Nef, which is the studio owned by the VCCA who administered these residencies. I was awarded two residencies there for which I am immensely grateful.

~Henri Matisse

An arm chair with a shawl of deep Atlantic blue.  
A settee the color of the garrigue patterned
with flowers and pink flamingoes, and two end tables
draped in the same cloth.  And a tablecloth the shade
of Seville oranges, all floating on a terra cotta sea.
It’s a riot of color, inviting the eye to sit down
and eat.  From the open window, a fresh breeze
is billowing the curtain like a flag.  The pleasures 
of the table reign among other pleasures, 
said Brillat-Savorin. No food on this table, 
only a cool white pitcher outlined in blue, 
a splotch of lemon on its side.  But I can imagine 
a plate of cheeses, a scattering of grapes.  
I read somewhere that Roquefort is not just a cheese, 
it’s a complex network of shepherds, dairymen, 
fromagers, geologists, hewers and haulers,
business executives.  I put a wedge in my mouth,
and a meadow of wildflowers blooms.  Matisse’s father
said Everything you do is pointless and leads nowhere,
and I wonder, where else would you want to be?
                        

But besides Covid and losing my ability to travel (and to give readings in support of Some Glad Morning), I also lost my beloved husband in 2021 (he had an aortic dissection, stroke, and heart attack (all at once)). He survived an 11-hour surgery, but during the ensuing five months in various hospitals and rehabs, I was unable to see him due to the quarantine. When I was able to bring him home for a month, I had to learn how to do trach care, tube feeding, wound care, etc., which was enormously challenging for me, but no regrets. We are all still reeling. I doubt I will ever be able to read this poem in public, but love in a long-term relationship is another of the themes I’ve come back to again and again in various poems.

Nestle the ample moon
of your husband.  “Is There Lightning on Venus?”
     Marilyn Kallet

The ample moon of my husband is rising softly
as he breathes through his CPAP hose.  He looks
like a baby elephant, the elongated crinkled tube
attached to his nose.  Everything has softened now,
in both our bodies, and we ache in places
we never knew we had.  Moonlight frosts
his hair, which is no longer old pewter 
nor the luster of silver.  Instead, it’s the garden
in January, after a storm.  Drifts piled 
against the window.  

So let me nestle against you, O my beloved,
your full moon riding high.  Together, we can
make our own mournful music.  The night is cold,
but our bed isn’t empty.  Let us ride in this small
boat on the incoming tide.
                        

As I move on from these enormously difficult two years, I am writing a long string of grief and mourning poems, probably poems nobody will want to read, let alone publish. But I am simply following the thread of the poems, letting them take me where they will.