The Swingset

Grace Walton


Wood rots,
ropes fray,
metal rusts

memories stay.

It stands there
deserted in the midst
of many times climbed
and swung from.

Sometimes it was a ship
escaping from the storm.
Other times, many times,
it was the convertible a friend and I
drove to McDonald’s.

Now years of playing cease.
It’s just the goal for flashlight tag,
where people sulk after losing
or
preen after winning.

At times I want to shed
my childhood,
but somehow I can’t cart it away
to the dump, where
swingsets are shredded, where
times past
can’t ever
return.

Deer Print

Benjamin F. Williams


A soft indentation—
two toes—
marks the ground,
a blank reminder
of what has been here before me.
I try to feel amazed,
to marvel at this muddy imprint,
to feel lucky at my chance notice—
but I want to see the deer,
steam streaming from her nostrils
as she stares at me,
thin legs threatening
to give way,
small brown head
trembling in the cold.
I want to see her bound away,
her tail high in the air,
her two-toed hooves
marking the ground.

The Bowl

Carl Johanson


In a second
it leaves my clumsy fingers
and crashes to the floor.
You turn at the sound
to find shards of the little red bowl
scattered across the tile.
I look up from the remains
and watch sadness seep
into your face.
And then I realize:
to me it was the whipped cream bowl,
to you it was a bowl of memories,
a tie to your childhood, your children,
your own mother.
I look down at the pieces
of a life
lying in front of me.
Then I turn
to get
the broom.

Shell

Harriet Brown


I found it in the wash, the orange
shell I picked up on the beach
that last time. One of my girls—
the one named after you—

must have found it in my room
and wanted it. Clean calcareous
curve, a palm open to nothing,
reeking of sunshine

and your death. For years
I didn’t know what to do with it.
You would have liked
this story: how a child

slips grief into a careless pocket.
Breaks it to pieces. Lets it go.

What Came to Me

Jane Kenyon


I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.

Watermelon

Nora Bradford


I watch Mom cut five slices,
then take the largest and reddest.
When I sink my teeth into solid juice,
the melon squirts its fireworks.
I swallow a seed—
that’s one I won’t spit
into the bowl
beyond the deck railing.
When I finish the delightful redness
I throw the green rind to Hobo,
who waits his turn.
He grabs the crust in his mighty jaws
and runs away
with its sweetness.

Seasons of the School Oak

Eben Court


In fall
the children rest under you,
backs
against your massive trunk,
books in hand,
as you drop golden leaves and acorns
and decorate what lies beneath.

In winter,
a tall skeleton
dressed in white,
you watch car pools and children
come and go,
while snow buries everything
and you wait.

In spring
your leaves fill the air
with green
as you watch the children
in the field play soccer
and everything-including you-
comes back to life.

In summer,
when the kids are gone
and the heat grows,
you enjoy the silence
while it lasts
but miss the company
of the children.

The Tree

Eben Court


In spring
your leaves start to come back
and the forest grows with color.
In summer
your leaves turn a brilliant shade of green
and your branches reach for the sky.
In fall
your leaves turn beautiful
shades of orange and red,
filling the air with color.
And then they begin to fall
slowly downwards,
making the ground
crunch beneath my feet.
In winter
all your leaves are gone.
Just skeletons live in this age.
The seasons -
they are different to a tree,
but all of them are beautiful.

Between Walls

William Carlos Williams


the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

in which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle

Poem (As the cat)

William Carlos Williams


As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jam closet
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot

The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams


so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.