November 2024
Bio Note: A retiring therapist, a writer, and a green witch herbalist, I harvest wild plants to make medicine or nutritional concoctions for my own use. I'm thrilled to have my fourth poetry collection published this year, Slow Now with Clear Skies, from MoonPath Press; it includes two poems formerly published in Verse-Virtual.
A Wish Blessing
Wishing you a moment of rest
quiet time to go within
observation time for early buds
forming on the trees.
Harvested poplar buds, blown down
after the storm, sticky with sweet
resin, the inner body of the tree
speaks a soft song to our body.
Wishing you time out of time
your inner self to unwind
to unpack, slow down, settle
with what has been absorbed
in this fast paced tech-life
pulsing against our rhythm—
take time to quake and shake
what is unnecessary from your bones.
Coming Out of COVID
We’re all a bit sleepy-eyed
the light a bit too much
we cover our eyes with a blanket
burrow back into the comfort
of cool sheets in a darkened
room where we’ve sheltered
with unusual grace—a time-out
from taxing social commitments—
we’ve had this reprieve and we ask,
must we change, touch and kiss
again, trust the impulse of others?
What spectrum of light is best,
what germs survive, the more rigorous
vagrant variants—the wavering bell
curve—the anniversary of each missed
celebration arrives a calendar surprise,
disappointment still in our bones—
a missed trip for my nephew’s graduation—
lost opportunities will never repeat.
We slipped one era to another—let us
grieve openly—my sister walked
when last I saw her—cancer made her
wheelchair bound. Every lost wedding,
and birthday a living regret. Children
less socialized, far from their
next goal. Guilty, if healthy, or if
we’ve done well, amid so much
loss. A deficit to acknowledge
a still bountiful life. Missed
memories through rose colored
glasses—a perfect flaneur along
the Schuylkill with my then agile
sister, her blond lab swam wild,
a light breeze wafted through leaves
overhead, a late lunch on the porch
of the white mansion mid-trail.
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