One Year
1.
Almost swallowed by the buzz of cicadas,
your words are an autumn storm
vowing to sweep all but memory
from the trees. I will not forget
their heat or your soft wings
stirring the air.
2.
Your name hangs
its sound unwavering
in the December wind. Yours is the breath
I cannot hold,
the shape I see in every shadow.
3.
Gray streaks the sky,
pours through trees. Silence
floats in the garden, soaks my skin.
I plant hyacinth, blue as your eyes,
bed marigolds without losing blossoms,
don’t know how to let the earth bear you.
4.
Your fingers know wind’s gentle tug
yet fly kites untouched by breeze.
My eyes follow flight’s wide curve,
the trail of your eager wings.
Empty hands, like this hazy sky,
may bear the glow
of another moon.
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Julie Damerell teaches at Monroe Community
College in New York and volunteers as a bulletin board monitor for Moveoangelus
and Melic Review. She is also the web editor for miller's pond.
Her prior publications include Mother Voices, ByLine, Bellowing
Ark, Sijo Blossoms, Conspire, and Savoy. Her
first chapbook, Needing Blue, will be ready in November 2001.
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