Eastertide 2020
Sarah Paley
Poet
Time has lost meaning
but nature doesn’t care
& a sour sweet Spring
has burst in with garish
yellows, shrieking pinks,
bloody reds & every shade of green –
as clueless as the eager guest
arriving at the wake, Spring declares
with open arms I’m here! & stands
bewildered at our dumb stare.
Bringing Back the Dead
Sarah Paley
Poet
Making muffins this morning I stir
with the silver spoon you gave me
that has your mother’s initials
S.C.B
on the handle & say to the air
over the bowl Thanks mom,
I’ll try to take better care of it.
I thought you’d like to know I polished
the small pitcher delicately engraved:
Willie, April 4th 1883
& the baptism cup celebrating
Charles Cabot June 28th 1826
the sterling box with
1946
on the left upward curve of a heart &
1974
on the right rise & just below
April 23rd With Love
that was dad seeking praise & absolution
These bequests had been so blackened
that no one could tell who they belonged to –
years of neglect had turned them into anonymous
goods for a rummage sale but I happened upon
an old tub of polish under the sink & a bag of rags
& found myself rubbing & rubbing
till all of you were revealed.
Sarah Paley’s poems have appeared in journals such as Agni, Barrow Street, Raritan, Magma and Phantom Drift. Her work is included in the anthology Together In A Sudden Strangeness American Poets Respond to the Pandemic (Knopf) and her chapbook The Autobiography of an Eel is forthcoming from Eyewear Publishing.