The Apostrophe Blog
In August 2012, the “Women Writing Nature” issue of Sugar Mule published not one but four! of my poems: “Bringing in the Seeds”; “Keep Napa Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Free!”; “On the Rare Occasion of an Ice Storm in the Coast Range”; and my prose poem, “Empty Nest.” They made a PDF of this triple issue so you can download then read them all as well as the work by all the other amazing women who contributed.
Bringing in the Seeds
The light is turning; our days now edge toward gray.
After these months of sow & rejoice in parking-strip abundance,
I am identifying my dead.
Harvesting the stalks of burgundy hollyhock, the rebel
sunflowers, girasoli who refuse to stop their lemon
turning with the sun.
For which I am glad: I still want time to snip to twist to spill.
To re-learn hollyhock is kin to the marsh mallow,
has curative powers (according to Culpepper) of “Wheesing, Teething
Babes, Cramp, Cough, Convulsion, the King’s Evil, Kernels, Sun-burning,
Heretic Hands & Their Trials by Fire.”
To revel on the altar of the almighty Helianthus,
pray any next-life lucky means every part of me
can be sun god like you, worshipped as nut, oil, silage, proxy snuff.
Instead of the way I’ve now ceased
all flowering, daily denizen of the phrase, gone to seed.
While I’m bringing in these seeds, reaping bounty
after a summertime streetscape’s bend & bop.
And saying, so long—to “dusty loveless eyes and ends,” to vision’s prism
of grief. How soon it shifts—each pip a harvest, memory.
No matter those pixels of sidewalk-snaps I shot.
Public domain photograph by s.g.s.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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