Alzheimer’s. Mother-in-law.

She can’t remember what she had for lunch--

or for that matter, if she went to eat.

In the drawer of her nightstand are pastries she hoards,

brought back from the dining room and then forgotten.

Growing moulds, blue and green and black.

She can’t follow the numbers of the Bingo game,

can’t name “that man I was married to”

for sixty years.  He died.

She who was so quick, so sure,

taking all in with her snapping dark eyes,

back when her hands and her mind

stayed busy knitting, knitting.

Now she refuses to leave the nursing home.

When her sons try to take her out,

she cries to retreat.

All those children clustering around

who call her by name.

To whom do they belong?

She’d rather sit in her room.

Where, for hours, she stares at the birds

that flock to the feeder her son

mounted outside the glass.

Twittering, chirping, jostling, landing, leaving--

like ideas swarming freely around seeds

an invisible hand replenishes each morning.

© Tony Russell, 2011

Birds in hiding; photo by Tony Russell

STREETLIGHT POETRY SERIES, APRIL 7

    This month’s “Streetlight Poetry Series” will include Live Poets’ own Hilda Ward.  Live Poets will not be meeting in April because the Gordon Avenue Library will be preparing for the huge annual book sale, so this is an opportunity to help fill in the void!    - Tony

APRIL 7, Thursday, 8 p.m.

HILDA WARD AND LUTHER GORE

C'VILLE COFFEE

1301 HARRIS STREET

Hilda Ward is artist-in-residence in Albemarle County Schoools.  She has a show on public access TV - ART EXPRESSIONS- and is a strong advocate of art and poetry in the community.

Luther Gore is a retired UVA Humanities professor.  Poetry, along with woodcarving and art, has long been a passion for him.  His work often delights us with a humorous slant.

You are all invited to come out for poetry and camaraderie.  As always meals, snacks, and drinks are available to those who wish to purchase them.  The poetry is free.

Judy Longley,

Coordinator

Streetlight Poetry Series

UFO Sighting, 1952

If there were another way to tell this,

I’d try it, but there isn’t, 

and so I tell it this way,

the way it happened, saying:

that it was a clear summer night—

that we four were in the back yard

gathered there for no reason I now recall,

the night sky awash with brilliant stars 

when 45 degrees up in the north 

there shone a yellow light that streaked

first east, then southwest, then west

almost faster than my eye could trace;

hovering at each vertex a few seconds—

then east again, covering a quarter-sky

with each heavenly swath

except the last, when it swept out of sight

and left us wondering What was that?

and Couldn’t have been…

but it could have and probably was,

and it left me curious about other stars,

other skies, other times—

wondering, now that I have heard of them,

about artificial plateaus in Peru

and giant animals carved into the stone

that say someone above could see them,

that someone landed and took off,

made this their home for who knows how long—

and maybe all this says to us 

such things have been in the sky 

that would puzzle shepherds

and frighten prophets, would land, and depart—

in every land, myths of visits

from the heavens, of gods from the sky,

and vague rumors of a pledged return—

speculations not of that first  night

but of many later nights

when I think back to that moment

when something swept across the sky

and left a mystery still unsolved,

left an awe-struck child full of wonder,

his imagination and soul

enriched by this moment of grace.

               © David Black, 2011

Current night sky photo by Don Dixon; appeared in Scientific American Feb. 25, 2008

So Old

I lie beside her on the sand

Watching her breathe--- 

In ... and ... out. In ... and ... out.
And I try to match her rhythm,
To be in sync with her. 

We are alike in many ways.
Our bodies catch the light
And glisten in the sun. 

We both have wrinkled skin.
It makes me feel so old. 

I wonder just how old she is.
She has a right to be wrinkled
For she is old, so old. 

The sea. 

© Joyce M. Broughton, 1997