Listing
1
kayak
heavy in water
lists to
side paddle drips
cool
water over warm
skin
baked in sun’s oven
even
egrets onshore stand
still
awaiting a breeze
2
shopping
planting reading
a
list set aside in wait
distracted
cardinal bright
red
on a branch listing
sways a
thin bough high above
porch
whitewashed railing
3
cannot
recall mind overfull
details
duties activities
no list
to remember thoughts
obscured
browse memory
blank
page unwritten page
head
listing try to recall
Jar Light, Starlight
Running through tall grasses
glass jar
in hand, cover off –
I can
still detect a faint scent
of peanut
butter wafting up.
He traps
one first, a firefly,
lightning
bug, mom calls it,
his lid
on tight, holes punched
for air
to get in, bouncing off
the
sides, looking for escape;
my jar
empty, we lie down
looking
through glass at the sky,
jar light
obscuring our vision.
Frantic
firefly bangs glass over
and over
until I cry. Finally,
he opens
the jar to let it go,
I see
starlight through my tears.
Women, Flowers and a Cow
Susan has
a flower named for her.
Black-Eyed
Susans are abundantly found
on
roadside or bower but who was she?
What
quite astounds me this the idea that
the
actual Susan might have bumped her eye
on a door
and bore a shiner, but I implore you
to
explain to me why a gold flower bears her name
or are
cows to blame, since I read that a Holstein
black and
white was sometimes nicknamed the same.
Yes,
bovines called Black-Eyed Susans
were said
to give the sweetest milk, they claim,
but about
the flower which is not black and white
and now
I’m confused (because of the cow];
getting
back to the gold and black flower;
there was
a certain person who claimed
the title
(or fame) for their Susan.
I’d
prefer the reason be known, since I wonder
if the
poem of this name refers to the same
Susan
written by poet John Gay?
Or in a
long-ago day, gold and black coat of arms-
Lord
Baltimore, thus the state flower
of
Maryland is the Black-Eyed Susan.
Once more
the mystery unfolds to reveal
a woman,
a flower and a cow. (how surreal!)
Now you
know the why and how I began to
feel
there was more to the given name of
this gold
and black flower. I thought by the hour
of a
woman named Susan, of her boarding ships
and the
root extracts diuretic, for grips and
remedies
for maladies by natives and maybe
this story goes on in a black and gold epic!
Julie A. Dickson is a seasoned poet, that is, she has been writing for a long time, prompted by memories, nature and art, or whatever tweaks that writing bug. Her poems appear in various journals including Misfit, Open Door Magazine, New Verse News and Lothlorien. Dickson is a push cart nominee, advocate of captive elephants and companion to rescued semi-feral cats, Cam and Jojo.
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