November 2024
Author's Note: This issue's theme is Hope, a hard commodity for me as I write this in October amidst the hoopla of election season. What I do know is sometime this month I will no longer have to corral errant leaves. I am grateful to the ongoingness of poets.
Constellations
Constellations of sadnesses
commandeer my heaven.
Her death. A flood. His illness.
Complications and compound
necessities. Waiting without knowing.
I cannot shake those stars out
of a magic bag like dice and toss them
on a velvet-draped table – lest I fall
straight into memory. This morning thousands
of migrating grackles rested in my trees, gackling.
The taste of a ripe Bartlett pear. Your joke
about rental cars and ducks. Though this season’s
sun gives less than before, it’s enough to glint
falling leaves like feathers. Barely enough
you might say but something – like adding
maple syrup to strong coffee. Watching
the terrier chase a chipmunk. A huge can
of sunflower seed waiting for winter’s birds.
The float of milkweed seed. A hint of alive.
To have that. Somewhere a wish upon.
Hard Work
Grief dares us to love once more.
– Terry Tempest Williams
they say – someone needs to love –
and poets search for particulars –
bees lighting on hyssop, two-inch
rainfall in a drought, the overwhelm
smell of an oriental lily. Even the puny
buttercup gets a line, the fluting male
cardinal’s call two or three, and fading
stubbornness of a golden rose a sonnet.
I understand seeking resilience,
what’s sacred just outside the door
or in the first cup of coffee. A balm
we need for the flaying we take
day after day as hot skies
taunt dry lake beds. Where we lose
count of the dead or dying.
A little girl with pink bows on her pigtails
walks the mall holding her mother’s hand.
I was once that girl
and once that mother.
They smile at each other
in the smell of cinnamon rolls.
Despite sugar spreading in air,
my gut churns. Shootings,
Roe gone, world-wide over-the top
sweltering. I can’t see one detail here
that transforms fear into cheers.
Maybe outside, transient mirage
pools on the freeway. Chicory’s blue.
The struggle of my hardy pond lily
to bloom in so little water,
hard work to live three days.
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 important to community building at Verse Virtual. -JL