August 2024
Bio Note: My new poetry collection, Steady, is out from Dos Madres Press, and it includes my prize-winning poems, “Lady Bird” and “Being Ruth Asawa.” My Ethel Zine chapbooks—Surrealist Muse, Escaping Lee Miller, Frida, and Being Ruth Asawa—are for sale in the gift shop of the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Luminescence
pink perigee moon of August
scent of wild rose and honeysuckle
where fireflies dance in the grass
and frogs croak in the swamp
swallows are flying to roost
barn owls are flying to hunt
bluefish and stripers run in the floodtide
churning the surface of the sea
comb jellies bob in the currents
their tiny combs refracting moonlight
underwater rainbows
shimmering in liquid darkness
Preserves
Cooking berries with sugar,
I stand over a hot stove on a hot day.
Steam of summer’s sweet essence
curls up my nostrils.
I stir my jam,
and in the mind’s inner eye
I see a procession
of brightly-colored gliders
like human butterflies
climbing the thermals
over Brace Field,
soaring over Oblong Valley,
where the crickets deepen their song
as the morning advances,
and fields of corn and hay
are growing dark and ripening.
Vines tangle in the wetlands,
fireflies glimmer after twilight,
and the deer are watchful.
High in the Green Mountains,
surrounded by forest, open to the sky,
underground springs feed the crystal lake.
On the surface swims a loon.
We float on our backs,
gazing at the clouds and sky,
cradled by water caressing us like silk.
Here, where the forest keeps the secrets
of our younger selves.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL