September 2024
Nancy Sobanik
nancysobanik@gmail.com
nancysobanik@gmail.com
Bio Note: I'm trying to peddle a first collection, and have just started submitting again for 2024. I have a poem forthcoming in One Art, and my work can be found in Sheila-Na-Gig and Sparks of Calliope. When not frantically gifting zucchini in every form imaginable (raw and cooked!) to friends and family, I can be found hiking in the Maine mountains and forests.
Rare
Something nameless and uncircumscribed
leapt from your brush, a flash, a glint
as if light had struck the flint of your eye
whether purple iris banding fields at Arles,
or sway of golden wheat in St. Remy,
sweet scent suggested from the stacks of hay
As if a floss of gold had arced from brush
to bend both time and space, and when replete
the sea reflected angel’s swords at night
I once saw a waterspout swirl and step,
wind climbing stairs, wonder and fury rising
then just as quickly disappear
and thought of you, staring at the canvas
as if blind, arranging pigments into a vase,
as if beautiful flowers of the mind
Autumnal Garden
Turn the soil with your spade,
see the tracks of earthworms
once plentiful in the sun-drenched loam
burrowed below cooling clods.
Vines that skirmished
with squash bugs
and waved elephant ears
in manic exuberance
sigh as they lean to embrace
the ground with withered arms.
Tuck tulip bulbs into pockets
hidden from the keen eyes of squirrels,
to slumber under a diadem of frost.
They dream in orange and red,
oblivious of approaching gloom.
Trudge back to the shed,
the chill nipping at your nape;
turn your collar up,
hang each tool on its hook.
Your armchair beckons,
the book you never
picked up all summer.
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