Germany 1945.
Two sisters pick soft yellow chamomile
On an open birdsong-filled hill
Chamomile scents plummet onto yellow fingers
Sunlight shoots down from above.
Their foreheads glisten
with beads of sweat. The girls run,
Tumble down the hills
Laughing, digging, tossing flowers
Into the air where
Two buzzing dots
Mark the sky.
The older sister takes her sibling’s hand
And runs runs runs runs
Toward home as […]
after Celan
— for the deaths of many
Beginningless– a kindof, what? terrible patienceperhaps, content to turneach again into the green milkof daybreak, that evening cloud,sips it at midday, voiceor choice of ever that night.
[…]
in mem. Norman O. Brown (1913-2002)
A longer sunset, orthat water edge againwhose light not exactly frightened,I suppose, but something wasn’t . . .well enough remembered, as . . .
You see the bird. You listenthough you do not understand, andeach song quietly. […]
Today requiresa past
The riverside roadclosed, silent& utterly still for the first timein who knowshow long
the houseslowly pulledfrom origin Ato destination B, stopping for the nightat the exact point between us& the river
A new view – all gables& dormers – inserted intothe old, the riverdisplaced
this strategyassembled here, this actionhaving weight& many bitsof order
[…]
Twice, fromlove, she satthrough death
friend (first),& mother (yearslater)
father, al-most
thatNovember nightshared
Hard times
Wordless stancesin the world of change
~ Gil McElroy
This poem is from an ongoing, open-ended cycle of poems collectively entitled “The Julian Days”. The series is based on a system […]
