By: Marianne Lyon
Today Mary Oliver keeps me company
She doesn’t parlay gossip in rocker on front porch
sip tea watch ruckus kids
kick holler entwine in double-dutch ropes
Instead speaks of fiery desire to thrive
sadness with humanity’s second-fiddle-living
unexplored notion of infinity
She calls a black clad figure over
invites him to join our afternoon radiance
Mary ponders his weary stare sagging jowls
She doesn’t converse but allows her poetry to
articulate there are rifts in your long black coat
I am speechless at first have a hollow feeling
a thrumming sense that my body has become a drum
yet I hold marvelment that Mary allows me a front seat
to inviting improvisation
She intensely addresses him as Mr. Death (yes! Mr. Death)
when you come like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to step through the door full of curiosity
wondering what is it going to be like
I sink into inquietude queries abound wish we could
repose under tall oak heaps of acorns lie in warm grass
calmly contemplate this open-door inquisitive eyes
inquire of ineffable cracks fissures rifts
Marianne has been a music teacher for 43 years. After teaching in Hong Kong, she returned to the Napa Valley and has been published in various literary magazines and reviews including Ravens Perch, TWJM Magazine, Earth Daughters and Indiana Voice Journal. She was nominated for the Pushcart prize in 2017. She is a member of the California Writers Club and an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in California.
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