Poem: Ritual for Ash

Ritual for Ash
by Cindy Williams Gutierrez

We will smudge
our shoulder blades with wings of ash.

We will sow
your remaining ash in an untilled field.

We’ll toss
red carnations, red dahlias, red hibiscus.

We’ll release
white doves and flutter white handkerchiefs.

We’ll return
to the field to watch brave bulls roam.

We will wait
for the grass to catch fire.

Poem: The Difference

"The Difference"
by Thomas Hardy

I

Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

II

Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

 https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/difference-0

Poem: Echolocation

"Echolocation"
by Sally Bliumis-Dunn

The whales can’t hear each other calling
in the noise-cluttered sea: they beach themselves.
I saw one once— heaved onto the sand with kelp
stuck to its blue-gray skin.
Heavy and immobile
it lay like a great sadness.
And it was hard to breathe with all the stink.
Its elliptical black eyes had stilled, were mostly dry,
and barnacles clustered on its back
like tiny brown volcanoes.
Imagining the other whales, their roving weight,
their blue-black webbing of the deep,
I stopped knowing how to measure my own grief.
And this one, large and dead on the sand
with its unimaginable five-hundred-pound heart.


https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/echolocation

Poem: Pastoral

"Pastoral"
by David Baker

Here at the center      of a field            of green
                                                                                  
leaves waving            center of a         grief I can’t

see far enough           to tell how         it will ease

it will not ease           it goes on           and on now

as yours does            in sunlight         and in rain

holding hands with    her in the           last minutes


https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/pastoral-2