Literary Sampler: Essays, Book Reviews, and More...
Monthly Column by Charity Gingerich

It is my hope that the following “light verse poetry” will not only put you in the mood for picking and freezing deliciously plump strawberries and blueberries, but will bring to mind happy memories made in summers gone by, even prompting you to jot them down and make your own collection of summer memories.

Beyond offering poetry for pure enjoyment, my reason for sharing this poem sequence this month is two-fold: next month I plan on sharing “A Conversation about Poetry,” in which I explore questions and opinions surrounding contemporary poetry. In the meantime, I hope to inspire you to ponder your own opinions on poetry in general and contemporary poetry in particular. What is your definition of poetry, who are your favorite authors, and what is it about their work that keeps you coming back to it? Further, are you inclined to favor contemporary poetry, or do you find it pretentious and alienating? Perhaps you aren’t even sure what contemporary poetry is. Keep these questions in mind, discuss them with your friends, and next time, we’ll continue this conversation.

Summer Daze

Why is the phone ringing at this ungodly hour,
the sun barely oozing his toes through grasses
thick with dew, clumsy with the residue of sleep.
A too cheerful screech threatens to send my
head diving beneath feather pillows, slicing
unmercifully through the last tulle swaths of
dreams carelessly constructed between soft
snores. Oh. I’ve forgotten that today is strawberry-
picking day and I was to be up while the moon
was donning his nightcap. Enter the cat: (though
some believe cats have no place in stories, poems
or real life): her purr is too loud this morning –
rumbling like a diesel engine; and did I mention
that I’m allergic to the million little dander hairs
that trail her like a faithful entourage? A hacking
fur ball forms and will not be swallowed, but the
screetcher’s powerful lungs pump on unharmed,
filling my head too with large continents of Things
Which Must Be Done Today. The cat purrs, the
sun yawns a big one full of morning breath; my
fingers are awake: I reach for the end button
and the dial tone begins its Gregorian chant. Ah,
mountains of strawberries and cream…
a mouse’s tale twitches along the bowl’s blue rim.

---

kitchen: six years old at 12 a.m.

Garlic drops and moonshine
drift together across the aged
linoleum floor – diamond patterns

of cream on faded green, over
jars of gleaming peaches,
still warm with the lids popping

sealing this wraith-like
memory I have of waking up
at midnight, sweaty and

tangled with intense pain –
minute dynamite explosions
where my eardrums ought to

be. Onion slices for
bee stings and sore screams –
honey for cookie-baking-burns

and whisky for the sniffles.
My suffering all seemed to
come upon me in the forest

of night, when the world
was a hideous black monster
and my mother a cool, drifting

shadow of comfort, a slice of
moonlight at midnight among
popping ears and jars of peaches.

---

The Good Goddess:

Pottering this afternoon
in the butterfly garden
I found myself hovering
over the beard of a particularly
glorious yellow iris, darned
in maroon. My eyes, tricked
by its artless beauty, took
a moment to register its additional
adornment: a fist of mimickingly
yellow, newly-hatched spiders
no bigger than pin heads
exercising their recently unstuck
legs up and down runways
spun between glimmered beard
hairs and patiently leaning,
neighborly leaves of honeysuckle.
A hearty breath might have sent
Them spinning into spiderly
infinity, but I let them live, for
they might catch July’s over-
industrious hornets, and, well –
it’s no fun picking on something
that’s pinheaded, yellow and spins.

---

Red Dresser Moment

On droning summer evenings
when the pesky nippers have

greedily drunken their fill of our blood
we trudge home between the stubbles of corn

(slugs scrunching between our toes,)
bare legs bearing a violent web of
fine red brier clawings,

(mouths berry stained)
with pockets full of poison ivy

that will bloom with wild abandon
on our ruddy cheeks by morning.

With the opening of the faded
red drawer I pull out more than just

my underwear – a cloud of little
memories along with the

pink poke-a-dots and slinky
violet lace. There. The drawer is

shut once more. But the memories
linger in a pungent cloud

of bygone days, like the halo of a
naughty angel ‘round my head,

(the neighbor has been
spreading manure again.)

---

Copyright © 2007 by Charity Gingerich.