September 2022
Bio Note: I've recently had the good fortune to become a volunteer with the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, collecting behavioral data on African lions, black bears, Allen's swamp monkeys, Canada lynx, and snow leopards, with the aim of giving them the best lives possible. Animals often show up in my poems, and I won't be surprised if some of the above are among them. I am the author of the poetry collections The Wordless Lullaby of Crickets (Kelsay Books, 2023) and Kissing the Long Face of the Greyhound, the novel Infraction, and other books.
Lake Time
No one is in a hurry here.
The day takes its time unfolding,
and we unfold with it, rising
when sleep has inched away,
pouring some coffee, sitting
on the deck facing the scrap
of lake, itself laid-back, unruffled,
mirror smooth, letting the clouds
watch themselves as they amble
slowly across the placid sky.
A heron drifts lazily by. A squirrel
drapes itself like a tiny rug athwart
a branch of the oak, whose leaves
can barely find the energy to tremble.
A stilt-legged bird stands in the shallows,
as patient as a rock. Only the hummingbird
seems not to have gotten the memo, zipping
from flower to flower like it’s got a tight
schedule to keep. For us, the clock has lost
meaning. We eat when hungry, swim
when hot, go to bed when the day has
unwound itself like a spool of thread
rolling down a gentle slope. Eventually,
a nonchalant moon clambers up among
a placid sea of stationary stars so languidly
it makes the snails look like Lamborghinis.
When at last we make our way to sleep-
softened sheets, the low hum of crickets
provides a lento soundtrack to the dreams
that ease into our leisure-sodden brains.
The End
We all want to die peacefully,
without pain or regret
(which is its own kind of pain).
My grandmother-in-law died
in her sleep. That’s how I’d
want to go, we all said. Once,
I saw a robin on the apex
of the neighbors’ roof.
As I listened to its exquisite
morning song, a hawk snatched it
midnote and flew into a clear sky
with its sonorous breakfast treat.
Maybe, I think now, that’s how
I want to go, with a song on my lips
that’s destined never be finished.
Candace Parker, Please Don't Go
On rumors that the WNBA
star might be retiring
I know I’m late to the party,
but you are the life of it,
the competition magician,
the facial raconteur, the glue
that holds the crew together.
How dull it would be without
you—your passion and panache,
your sparkle. You are the high
priestess of basketball, the court
clown, the ringmaster. How
can we know the dancer from
the dance without you at that
hardwood hoedown? You are not
the team. I know that. But you are
the caffeinated tea in teamwork.
Note: “How can we know the dancer from the dance” is from
the poem “Among School Children" by W. B. Yeats.
©2022 Yvonne Zipter
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