The 2010 Collins Poetry Residency ends today. Thank you for your participation.
Mary Beth Kwasek is an English teacher at a community college and a member of Quint City Poets. Mary Beth packed this poem with imagery of at least three of the senses and with strategically placed similes, while the beginning and the end loop the poem. I will not say more and let you enjoy.
Thirteen
The “who” at the beginning
of the red-winged black bird’s call
resonates in a girl
in a tiny red wind breaker
soft from two year’s wear
short in the sleeves and waist
who stands out in a field
still brown and soggy
weepy from winter snow.
Her flesh --
the luminous tan and pink
of freshly cut cedar
Wisps escape from her brown braid
and curl like
butterflies’ tongues
tasting her salty neck and face.
Her fingers tinker
with the string to the kite
that leaps away from her arms
in a colored blur
joyful and unfettered
beloved in her eyes.
A tug brings it soaring one way
then the other
always farther and farther
away from her body.
Her spine plays
underneath the thin coat
pressed and pulled.
Tongue explores her mouth.
Body sings madly with breath
as the kite
burns and flickers
against the gray clouds
tied together with the black ribbons
of migrating birds,
flocking above the flat landscape
watching as it heals its winter bruises
perching in the bare branches
dark shadows of the leaves to come,
but she doesn’t notices the birds.
She thinks about the kite and
the pasque flowers
that silently opened
without her knowing
reaching their purple petals outward
exposing their golden hearts
to the rainy cold day.
Some had even formed
green pods round and ripe
without anyone
to admire their flowering.
Daffodils
did not come to her mind
nor tulips
smuggled away by the moles.
For these flowers were planned
for when the sunny skies
and the warmth
made it convenient
to see them,
but not the pasques—
blooming, oh so early
before anyone would think
to venture out from the house
to notice.
The cold from the ground rises and
strips her of her coat and jeans
clothing her in spring chill
while in the field below her feet
the wild carrots stiffen
their sap quickens
their soft fern-leaves greens.
She stands there
looking upward
and they whisper of
the purple stain and
willing whiteness
of the tall graceful flowers to come.
Her breath catches the air
suspended
with the lacy mist
as she watches the kite
reach out to the sky
almost obscured by the soft rain.
She extends herself toward it
up from the earth.
Her soul’s muscle
strains, strongly-strung
in a tall slender girl
holding fast to the string
that burns her fingers
and captures her breath
too quick, too unexpected
it will run out.
It pulls at her strong arms
that refuse to let go
before the very end
as the “chirree”
the shrill end
of the red-winged black bird’s call
meets the girl’s ears
like cracks frolicking through
half frozen puddles
heralding the coming of spring.
