maggistitches: May Day

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Last night's opening lecture in our two-day forum was excellent, and I learned that it's easy to knit a Bottom's-Up Bucket O'Chic while viewing slides. Three more architects speak today, followed by a wrap-up discussion ~ while the rest of you are off taking in the fine designs of Sheep & Wool. National Poetry Month ended yesterday, and I didn't post as many poems (by anyone) as I intended. So here is another of mine, mostly because today's the day. Have a good one.

May Day

Catherine skips the clipped lawn
that wraps the bright-bricked home
where I once stood in the blue
kitchen chair, counting buttercups
and violets newly sprouted in
the yard I looked on from the window.
She knows nothing of the sprinklers
buried where wild flowers grow
no more. She does not need to know
the rail she grasps to reach the door
once held my brother's head
between its iron bars. Inside,
Catherine helps my mother cut
the half-pints into May Day baskets,
cover them with foil and fill them
with market-bought flowers. Long ago
we hung the shining baskets
on neighbors' doors, and I hurried past
one house whose brown curtains hid
the troubled man who always smelled
like whisky. Now fresh paint coats
the walls where Catherine sleeps, the room
where he put a pistol to his head.
His death does not disturb her dreams.
A riot of flowers bloom
where street and sidewalk curve.

July 2008