All in Poetry
Artists who lived together, first at the Red Rose Inn in Villanova and later in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, and who vowed to stay together their whole lives – though Green married at age 40 and left the ménage. Each achieved acclaim in the early 1900s, Smith and Green as illustrators, Oakley as muralist. For more information, consult – as I did – Alice A. Carter’s The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love, 2000.
Like lightning, bolting from the sky —
A flash of inner sight consigned to words
That rip the page or heart.
Somehow I’ve always planned to visit you
in whatever is your off season, to wander
your back ways and appreciate sea level,
where I have lingered but never lived.
What if all
this time
crimson is the color
they’ve been waiting to be?
We revered their perfect green, and
as we mourn their death
red arrives.
This billowing pink sunrise
this festival
brings no weeping
only springing
joy
I observe this wonder, and am comforted to think
that she and her daughters, and theirs,
Will be doing this long after I am gone.
Diving, like a small, feathered seal
Into the pachysandra sea,
Bobbing, weaving,
Then the sharp jab
Of beak, a spear
To catch the prize.
I Love You — you, the visceral armies
You, the beloved protectors of soul
You, the creative living
The cellular brilliance
I used to keep fresh beans around
and grind them on demand.
But not for me: I’m bigger on tea.
Here, parked with the hard cider:
a can and a bottle of pre-made brew,
cold pour and so on. What was I
thinking in late summer?
Dreaming of guests who never came.
First remember and enter the meadow, then follow the blaze of color
Medwo, metwa, to cut down, a mown field
Meadowlary, meadowy shadow
To flower is to be vigorous, prosper and thrive
Plant, bud, adorn, cover with flowers, blossom
I made my mask of many charmed doors
Of sunlight and folded song
Fomentations of linden
Of night, of silence dipped
A subtle concentration
As lilacs contemplate opening
Lids extend, down, dawn
They lie in faded rows, ten cents apiece –
today half price, tomorrow knifed, fine shred
recycled to wipe counters, noses – cease
as books whose authors are no longer read.
Women of a certain age
(Or born at a certain time
In a certain era, milieu, set of expectations...)
Can find their way around other women’s kitchens.
The photos appear, rectangles growing smaller
As more and more of us sign in.
We are in the kitchen, the den, the office—
“At home,” no calling cards needed.
I walk endless circles through the neighborhoods,
Trying to find new streets, new paths,
because at least when I’m moving I’m going somewhere
Even if I always end up back home.
Maniacal movement, watch my step
Trip over the line
Can’t be helped
Inconsequential minutiae stay on my mind
I reckon that we’ve just ran out of time
To address the slow motion
Tick tock, cinematic grains or the vine?
My dad was diagnosed with COVID. My brother has a fever today. My mom is considered essential. I can’t do math. Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day. Today, I exist in limbo. Maybe I’ve been here for awhile. How long? Time has fallen away.
Sometimes I crumple up like bedsheets
only smelling lavender and three-day-worn sweaters
A few months ago, I knocked the clock off my nightstand
I haven’t picked it up. I’m waiting
for the right time, I think
