Blackberries

 In the early morning an old woman

is picking blackberries in the shade.
It will be too hot later
but right now there’s dew.

Some berries fall: those are for squirrels.
Some are unripe, reserved for bears.
Some go into the metal bowl.
Those are for you, so you may taste them
just for a moment.
That’s good times: one little sweetness
after another, then quickly gone.

Once, this old woman
I’m conjuring up for you
would have been my grandmother.
Today it’s me.
Years from now it might be you,
if you’re quite lucky.

The hands reaching in
among the leaves and spines
were once my mother’s.
I’ve passed them on.
Decades ahead, you’ll study your own
temporary hands, and you’ll remember.
Don’t cry, this is what happens.

Look! The steel bowl
is almost full. Enough for all of us.
The blackberries gleam like glass,
like the glass ornaments
we hang on trees in December
to remind ourselves to be grateful for snow.

Some berries occur in sun,
but they are smaller.
It’s as I always told you:
the best ones grow in shadow.

Margaret Atwood, potatopages.tumblr.com, July 19, 2021

The Greatest

 What I remember most about Muhammad Ali

Are not the fast hands and loose, graceful footwork.
Or Manila or Zaire. Or even what came after—
The slurred speech, the sad slow shuffle.
No, what I remember is a boy somewhere
In the foothills of the snowy Zagros Mountains,
A small Kurdish boy in a long blue robe
Who gave us directions that day we were lost,
And how he knew nothing of America
But two syllables he sang over and over
In the high unbroken voice of a girl—
Ali, Ali—then laughed and all at once
Began to bob and weave, jabbing and juking,
His robe flaring a moment like a fighter's.
Ali. One word, two bright syllables
That turned to smoke in the morning air.
And he pointed down the long dusty road
To Hatra and Ur, the ruins of Babylon,
And the two ancient rivers we had read about,
Their dark starless waters draining away into fog.

Robert Hedin, Poems Prose Poems (Red Dragonfly Press)

Stay With Us

 Lk. 24:28-29

Stay with us, for it is nearly evening.

         Dark approaches,

                  and though we seem to have our plans in order

                  so there is no need to fear,

                                    and we ourselves are impressed with the completeness,

         we do fear.

 

Please stay with us.

         You know our terror and do not blame us for it,

         though its taste and odor lie sour within us.

 

Stay with us.

         Evening rises all around,

         and you are light.

 

Please remain,

         for what is evening for

         except to fill the emptiness of day with friendship

                  and fruits that escaped us through the noon.

 

Stay with us

         that we may hold one evening longer

         this joy that grows from being with you.

 

Stay with us, please;

         the substance of our meal

         cannot nourish us without you.

Sally Witt, CSJ, collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings July 21, 2021

Red

All the while

I was teaching

in the state of Virginia

I wanted to see

gray fox.

Finally I found him.

He was in the highway.

He was singing

His death song.

I picked him up

And carried him

Into a field

While the cars kept coming.

He showed me

How he could ripple

How he could bleed.

Goodbye I said

To the light of his eye

As the cars went by.

Two mornings later

I found the other.

She was in the highway.

She was singing

Her death song.

I picked her up

And carried her

Into the field

Where she rippled

Half of her gray

Half of her red

While the cars kept coming.

While the cars kept coming.

Gray fox and gray fox.

Red, red, red.

Mary Oliver, Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2008) 

Spelling Bee

 

In the spelling bee my daughter wore a good
brown dress and kept her hands folded.
There were twelve children speaking

into a microphone that was taller than
they were. Each time it was her turn
I could barely look. It wasn't that I wanted

her to win but I hoped she would be
happy with herself. The words were too hard
for me; I would have missed chemical,

thermos, and dessert. Each time she spelled
one correctly my heart became a bird.
She once fluttered so restlessly beneath

my skin and, on the morning of her arrival,
her little red hands held nothing.
Her life since has been a surprise: she can

sew; she can draw; she can read. She hates
raisins but loves science. All the parents
must feel this, watching from the cheap

folding chairs. Somewhere inside them
love took shape and now
it stands at the microphone, spelling.

Faith Shearin, Moving the Piano (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2011)

Sunday Morning Early

 

My daughter and I paddle red kayaks
across the lake. Pulling hard,
we slip through the water.
Far from either shore,
my daughter is a young woman
and suddenly everything is a metaphor
for how short a time we are granted: 

the red boats on the blue black water,
the russet and gold of late summer’s grasses,
the empty sky. We stop and listen to the stillness.
I say, “It’s Sunday, and here we are
in the church of the out of doors,”
then wish I’d kept quiet.  That’s the trick in life—
learning to leave well enough alone.
Our boats drift to where the chirring
of grasshoppers reaches us from the rocky hills.
A clap of thunder.  I want to say something truer
than I love you.  I want my daughter to know that,
through her, I live a life that was closed to me.
I paddle up, lean out, and touch her hand.
I start to speak then stop. 

David Romtvedt, wyomingpublicmedia.org September 13, 2013

First Skating Party

 

Dozens of kids circle
the worn wooden floor
on old rental skates,
and none of them wear
helmets or pads,
so when they collide
or fall or stop themselves
by the simple technique
of steering straight
into the cinder-block barrier,
you can feel the pain
of the parents
who watch from booths
by the concession stand;
they know their children
have bones of balsa
and skin that tears
as easily as a napkin,
but they can do nothing
except yell, Be Careful!
and make hand gestures
to slow down
                             —Slow Down!—
as the ones they love
strobe past them
faster and faster
just beyond their reach.

Joseph Mills, The Miraculous Turning (Press 53, 2014)

Pixie Cut

~ for my daughter

 Black-eyed, black-haired girl of thirty-two,

 I can see you reflected in a mirror

 across the room—one of many mirrors and multiple stylists

 with tattooed limbs and hennaed heads, clipping

 and snipping. And I am thinking that the cloth draped

 around your body, catching the sheared locks that tumble

 to your shoulders, your lap, the floor, seems as sacred

 as white linen on an altar table—your face emerging

 like an angel sculpted from the clay

 of your long, dark hair. You are smiling

 because you see at last, what we all have seen—

 how beautiful you are, that the woman you imagined

 has arrived—

 and she is and always has been, you.

 Terri Kirby Erickson, Broad River Review Vol. 47 (2015)

Safe

 

After we buried my mother, we drank beer

and told stories in the room where she’d died.

The hospital bed was gone and the portable

commode I’d helped her settle on, the love

seat tucked flush with the window again, long

sofa shoved against the wall like always, the same

sofa where she’d fall asleep watching baseball

while she waited for me to come home from

some high-school date, and once, when I wasn’t

home by midnight, she threw a raincoat

over her flannel pajamas and drove around

until she found me mussed and unbuttoned behind

the Big Boy, sharing a bagged can of Colt 45

with the second-string quarterback. All the way

home and for an entire week, I was punished

by silence, a vast black void of disgust. The last time

I saw her, I wanted her to speak to me, to lock

the front door and turn off the last

light, to follow me upstairs, having made

the house safe for the night. But she didn’t

know who I was.

Sara Freligh, thesunmagazine.org (August 2012)

The Sun

 

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Mary Oliver, mbsrwestcork.wordpress.com May 30, 2016

Wind Watching

 

What if Dorothy wasn’t afraid of the wind?
What if she welcomed the cyclone?

The thought of being lifted, suspended
in air as release. What if she saw

it as escape, being tossed and jolted? Maybe
a change would occur if she shook fast

enough. Maybe she liked not knowing
if her body would survive the catch and release.

Maybe being picked up and let
go in another’s chaos was freeing.

I imagine she was raptured before the light of the day
had kissed the earth. The swirl approached and she went

willingly. Threw her head and arms back,
and let it consume her.

Maybe she had been waiting to be swept off her feet
by a wild, uncontrollable thing.

Khaline Rae, Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat (Story Line Press, 2021)

What Love May Look Like

A pre-dawn interstate. A thermos of coffee.
Next to me, the boy spiraled into himself asleep.
He went to bed in his uniform to be ready
for the tournament, and I simply prodded him
from bed to van after carrying out his bag and cleats.
When he wakes, he'll groggily eat the breakfast
his mother made at midnight before going to bed.
She also is asleep, at home, farther and farther away.
When she wakes, she will prepare breakfast
for our other child. Neither will think to say thanks
this morning. Perhaps they never will. Or maybe,
as with me now, it will occur to them years later
after they too have stumbled through a dark house
trying to gather together what their children need.

Joseph Mills, yourdailypoem.com, February 10, 2021 

Old Friends

 

Old friends are a steady spring rain,

or late summer sunshine edging into fall,

or frosted leaves along a snowy path—

a voice for all seasons saying, I know you.

The older I grow, the more I fear I'll lose my old friends,

as if too many years have scrolled by

since the day we sprang forth, seeking each other.

 

Old friend, I knew you before we met.

I saw you at the window of my soul—

I heard you in the steady millstone of my heart

grinding grain for our daily bread.

You are sedimentary, rock-solid cousin earth,

where I stand firmly, astonished by your grace and truth.

And gratitude comes to me and says:

 

"Tell me anything and I will listen.

Ask me anything, and I will answer you."

Freya Manfred, Loon in Late November Water (Red Dragonfly Press, 2018)

Surprise Breakfast

 

One winter morning I get up early
to clean the ash from the grate
and find my daughter, eight, in the kitchen
thumping around pretending she has a peg leg

while also breaking eggs into a bowl—
separating yolks and whites, mixing oil
and milk.  Her hands are smooth,
not from lack of labor but youth. 

She’s making pancakes for me, a surprise
I have accidentally ruined.  “You never
get up early,” she says, measuring
the baking powder, beating the egg whites. 

It’s true.  When I wake, I roll to the side
and pull the covers over my head.
“It was too cold to sleep,” I say.
“I thought I’d get the kitchen warm.”

Aside from the scraping of the small flat shovel
on the iron grate, and the wooden spoon turning
in the bowl, the room is quiet.  I lift the gray ash
and lay it carefully into a bucket to take outside.

“How’d you lose your leg?”  I ask.
“At sea.  I fell overboard in a storm
and a shark attacked me, but I’m fine.”
She spins, a little batter flying from the spoon.

I can hear the popping of the oil in the pan.
“Are you ready?” she asks, thumping to the stove.
Fork in hand, I sit down, hoping that yes,
I am ready, or nearly so, or one day will be.

David Romtvedt, wyomingpublicmedia.org September 13, 2013

Waiting

When the guy in the dark suit

Asks me if I want to see my mother

As she lies in the back room, waiting,

I remember her, for some reason,

In a white swimsuit, on a yellow towel

On the sand at Crystal Lake,

Pregnant with my sister,

Waiting for me to finish examining

The sleek fuselage of a minnow,

The first dead thing I had ever seen,

Before we went back to the cottage for lunch.

 

I remember her waiting up for my father

To come home from God knows where

In a yellow cab at 2:00 AM

And waiting for me in the school parking lot

In our old blue station wagon

When whatever it was I was practicing for

Ran late. I remember her, shoulders thrown back,

Waiting in the unemployment line, waiting

For me to call, waiting for the sweet release

In the second glass of wine

After a long day working at the convalescent hospital

Where everyone was waiting to die.

 

And I remember her waiting for me

At the airport when I got back from Japan,

Waiting for everything to be all right,

Waiting for her biopsy results.

Waiting.

 

But when the guy in the dark suit

Asks if I would like to go back

And be with her in that room where she lies

Waiting to be cremated I say No

Thank you, and turn and walk out

Onto the sunny street to join the crowd

Hustling down the sidewalk

And I look up at the beautiful

White clouds suspended above the city,

Leaving her in that room to wait alone,

For which I will not be forgiven.

George Bilgere, Missouri Review September 1, 2001 

Telling My Father

 

I found him on the porch that morning,
sipping cold coffee, watching a crow
dip down from the power line into the pile
of black bags stuffed in the dumpster
where he pecked and snagged a can tab,
then carried it off, clamped in his beak
like the key to a room only he knew about.
My father turned to me then, taking in
the reek of my smoke, traces of last night’s
eyeliner I decided not to wipe off this time.
Out late was all he said. And then smiled,
rubbing the small of my back through the robe
for a while, before heading inside, letting
the storm door click shut behind him.
Later, when I stepped into the kitchen,
I saw it waiting there on the table—a glass
of orange juice he had poured for me and left
sweating in a patch of sunlight so bright
I couldn’t touch it at first.

James Crews, Telling My Father (South East Missouri State University Press, 2017)

Promise

 

This day is an open road

stretching out before you.

Roll down the windows.

Step into your life, as if it were a fast car.

Even in industrial parks,

trees are covered with white blossoms,

festive as brides, and the air is soft

as a well-washed shirt on your arms.

The grass has turned implausibly green.

Tomorrow, the world will begin again,

another fresh start. The blue sky stretches,

shakes out its tent of light. Even dandelions glitter

in the lawn, a handful of golden change.

Barbara Crooker, Radiance (Word Press, 2005)

Ode to 'Antiques Roadshow'

He looks like the kind of man who dries the dishes

each evening after dinner as he and his wife stand

at the sink, the dying light rinsing over their faces.

He hands the appraiser two vases, explains in a voice

like chipped crockery that his wife bought the vases,

but died before she could bring them to the Roadshow.

The appraiser says they are Bohemian Mantel Vases

made in about 1880, rare because of the scenic

images painted on them and worth about $4,000.

Now the man and the appraiser are both in tears.

I can’t imagine the vases on my mantle, even if

I found them for $4 at the Wise Buys Thrift Store

on Holly Street, but I am in love with the man,

with the appraiser and the entire Roadshow audience.

In Tucson, I fall in love with the guy in the brown-

striped shirt who brings in a brown, blue and white-

striped Indian blanket that Kit Carson supposedly gave

to the man’s grandmother, the foster child of a poor farmer.

The appraiser tells him it is a Navajo chief’s blanket

made from hand-woven wool as fine as silk and says

it is a national treasure and worth maybe a half

million dollars. How much would it cost, what

would it be worth to run my hand over the stripes Kit Carson,

the grandmother and the Navajo chief once touched?

In Secaucus, a woman brings an early American

card table. She tells the Keno twins, Leigh and Leslie

(I can’t tell them apart), that she bought the table

at a garage sale for twenty-five dollars. The brothers

are as excited as runners at the start line—in fact

they look like they could have run cross-country

track in college. Leigh, or maybe it’s Leslie, says the table,

circa 1794, has a label with the maker’s name, John Seymour.

The brothers crouch, show us the inlaid bell flowers

on the table legs and point to their elegant taper.

Luckily, the woman’s cleaning efforts with linseed oil

and turpentine did not destroy the table’s patina. By now

I know patina and provenance are as valuable as a blue

chip stock certificate. By now I know someone

will show up with a stone sculpture purchased as a relic

from the Yucatan jungle or a Fabergé egg from a guy

selling off his collection. Then the appraiser takes

us through the tricks of the making-things-look-old trade,

the art of making the not-real look real. I can sympathize

with such purchases. I’ve chosen a few things in my life

where the patina wore off and the provenance was over-

rated. If I were to visit the Antiques Roadshow, I would

bring the pottery jugs my father collected along the Mississippi

River from what was probably a saloon dump site.

The jugs are heavy, inscribed with Dutch words

of many letters and look like pieces from a still-life

painting of a table set for an evening meal of bread

and cheese. I know they are not valuable. I see some

on the internet remarkably like those I own. But I would

tell the story of how my dad came home from work

with boxes of jugs and bottles in his pickup,

how we girls listened and knew that life could—

at any moment—bring surprises. I would tell how

ten years later my father drowned in the river while

repairing flood-damaged bridges. Then I would

take the jugs back home.

Samuel J. Erickson, Rattle #62, Winter 2018