Category: Poetry

“A Single Autumn” by W.S. Merwin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

The year my parents died
one that summer one that fall
three months and three days apart
I moved into the house
where they had lived their last years
it had never been theirs
and was still theirs in that way
for a while

echoes in every room
without a sound
all the things that we
had never been able to say
I could not remember

doll collection
in a china cabinet
plates stacked on shelves
lace on drop-leaf tables
a dried branch of bittersweet
before a hall mirror
were all planning to wait

the glass doors of the house
remained closed
the days had turned cold
and out in the tall hickories
the blaze of autumn had begun
on its own

I could do anything

“A Single Autumn” by W.S. Merwin, from The Shadow of Sirius. © Copper Canyon Press, 2008.

“Regret” by Lawrence Raab

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

Every day there’s something old
to feel sorry about—
what I should have done and didn’t,
or what I did, and kept on doing.

I want to believe
everyone’s forgotten by now.
Then I picture them thinking back.

And those who’ve died
and earned the wisdom death allows
just shake their heads and sigh.
“Very funny,” my father would say

after my sister and I played
some cruel little joke on him.
“Ha, ha,” he’d add,
to let us know he got the point.

We want to forget
until we start to forget.
We want the past to change,
and we want it back.

“Enough is enough,”
my father used to say
to tell us it was over.

“Regret” by Lawrence Raab, from The History of Forgetting. © Penguin Poets, 2009.

“The Couple in the Park” by Louise Glück

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

A man walks alone in the park and beside him a woman walks, also alone.
How does one know? It is as though a line exists between them, like a line on
a playing field. And yet, in a photograph they might appear a married cou-
ple, weary of each other and of the many winters they have endured togeth-
er. At another time, they might be strangers about to meet by accident. She
drops her book; stooping to pick it up, she touches, by accident, his hand and
her heart springs open like a child’s music box. And out of the box comes
a little ballerina made of wood. I have created this, the man thinks; though
she can only whirl in place, still she is a dancer of some kind, not simply a
block of wood. This must explain the puzzling music coming from the trees.

“The Couple in the Park” by Louise Glück from Faithful and Virtuous Night. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

“People Who Take Care” by Nancy Henry

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

People who take care of people
get paid less than anybody
people who take care of people
are not worth much
except to people who are
sick, old, helpless, and poor
people who take care of people
are not important to most other people
are not respected by many other people
come and go without much fuss
unless they don’t show up
when needed
people who make more money
tell them what to do
never get shit on their hands
never mop vomit or wipe tears
don’t stand in danger
of having plates thrown at them
sharing every cold
observing agonies
they cannot tell at home
people who take care of people
have a secret
that sees them through the double shift
that moves with them from room to room
that keeps them on the floor
sometimes they fill a hollow
no one else can fill
sometimes through the shit
and blood and tears
they go to a beautiful place, somewhere
those clean important people
have never been.

“People Who Take Care” by Nancy Henry from Hard. © MuscleHead Press.

“That Evening” by Ken Hada

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

that evening

after the service
after the casket

was lowered into red dirt
dirt which he had plowed
and planted

I sat with her
in the house

a house that would never be
the same, the house of grandkids
and trophies from prize quilts
and blue-ribbon jams from
county fairs

and she spoke some
and I spoke some

I was not yet eighteen
He was sixty five

so my thoughts
too few memories

the shotgun he bought for me
at auction, catching a big bass
on his cane pole, sitting on his lap
at sunrise, hearing growls about
harvest and calves, hay, tractors
and fences

now it would all change
we both knew that

as we sat holding our differing
grief, it would all change

some for the better
but not all

sundown and death — too obvious
to construct — that first night
was hard, but she was hard too

and she teaches me
to live on

for thirty more years (and counting)
that evening still alive in me —
a lesson in grief

believe it, bear it
bury it

“That Evening” by Ken Hada, from Spare Parts. © Mongrel Empire Press, 2010.