Waiting for the milky world
Meg Pokrass
She won’t lie down in grass because of snakes,
won’t strap herself to a kite,
won’t jump on a moving train.
She loves the thrill of routine,
the gnarled knowledge that nothing will change.
As earth rotates, the sun wakes us,
propels us forward until it turns into twilight
that lingers for a while.
In the next county a tornado tore houses apart.
Farther north, a gun was power
in a teenager’s hand.
Life overtakes us in waves.
We spit and sputter as we learn to swim,
to stroke the water and believe
there is solid ground underneath.
In the Milky Way, we are just another planet
dangling in space, a bouncing ball
the gods play with.
Rags of Light
Early light pokes the garden
where blackberries surrendered
to a cascade of leaves
and a raccoon still prowls.
I switch on the Tiffany lamp,
let strobes of blue infuse the study.
We need the light
as darkness is a round-table visitor,
lays bare the day’s story
of disaster –
sharp words,
snarky asides that erupt
like bullets,
flare and sniper the guilty
and the innocent.
Stand in the fractured light.
Let the tongue stroke words like feathers.
The Witching Hour
When shadows whistle in cedars,
memory flares like a flag
hooking the breeze, the moon’s burn
through clouds, and time twists
and cackles regret.
Twilight’s broom
scratches the metal roof,
darkens bloodroot, yew, and liriope.
Memory of you as steep as the crags
of the moon.
Down, down, into
the cauldron of regret, bubbling
with eye-of-heart and soul.
Night howls, hacks memory’s spell:
what if our love could rise from ashes.
Helga Kidder’s poems have recently been published in Orbis, Dragonfly, Gyroscope and others. She has five collections of poetry. The most recent, Learning Curve, has poems of immigration and assimilation. She loves writing each morning when the world seems at rest and her mind unspools.
Meg Pokrass
She won’t lie down in grass because of snakes,
won’t strap herself to a kite,
won’t jump on a moving train.
She loves the thrill of routine,
the gnarled knowledge that nothing will change.
As earth rotates, the sun wakes us,
propels us forward until it turns into twilight
that lingers for a while.
In the next county a tornado tore houses apart.
Farther north, a gun was power
in a teenager’s hand.
Life overtakes us in waves.
We spit and sputter as we learn to swim,
to stroke the water and believe
there is solid ground underneath.
In the Milky Way, we are just another planet
dangling in space, a bouncing ball
the gods play with.
Rags of Light
Early light pokes the garden
where blackberries surrendered
to a cascade of leaves
and a raccoon still prowls.
I switch on the Tiffany lamp,
let strobes of blue infuse the study.
We need the light
as darkness is a round-table visitor,
lays bare the day’s story
of disaster –
sharp words,
snarky asides that erupt
like bullets,
flare and sniper the guilty
and the innocent.
Stand in the fractured light.
Let the tongue stroke words like feathers.
The Witching Hour
When shadows whistle in cedars,
memory flares like a flag
hooking the breeze, the moon’s burn
through clouds, and time twists
and cackles regret.
Twilight’s broom
scratches the metal roof,
darkens bloodroot, yew, and liriope.
Memory of you as steep as the crags
of the moon.
Down, down, into
the cauldron of regret, bubbling
with eye-of-heart and soul.
Night howls, hacks memory’s spell:
what if our love could rise from ashes.
Helga Kidder’s poems have recently been published in Orbis, Dragonfly, Gyroscope and others. She has five collections of poetry. The most recent, Learning Curve, has poems of immigration and assimilation. She loves writing each morning when the world seems at rest and her mind unspools.
