Tag Archives: poetry

125. Mother-Daughter Journey: Poetry: Bird Call

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©S.Kalish 2/22/18 This morning my eyes were pried open by my ears at 6:00 am, by a bird that sang in a tree loud and clear on a cold gray morning, singing a song I had never heard before. Yesterday was 78°. The bird had been fooled, the seasons had been spun around but no one notified the singer: It sang until 6:21. A younger friend of mine has been near-death in a hospital, not the first time, she has accident after accident but remains highly psychic, all-knowing, her energy is undefeatable, her body crumbles and her mind escapes: She … Continue reading →

Poetry/Musings: Reversed Orphans

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February 16, 2018 I often go back to bed after I get up to feed the kitty. I pop a few pills of the supplement type and scan the news; it’s usually unbearable. Don’t ask me to go into details. All I can say is: we are fractured, splintered, broken, wounded, and living in the zone of battle, a zone we never thought we’d find, a zone of dis-ease. It makes me tired, too tired to begin another day. Although we are parents, our children are orphaned. Again, there are parents who have lost their children. Reverse-orphans, I call them. … Continue reading →

A Poem For Snow

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    SNOW DAY by Billy Collins Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, its white flag waving over everything, the landscape vanished, not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, and beyond these windows the government buildings smothered, schools and libraries buried, the post office lost under the noiseless drift, the paths of trains softly blocked, the world fallen under this falling. In a while, I will put on some boots and step out like someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts, and I will shake a laden branch sending a cold … Continue reading →

Birthday-Poetry Wednesday

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My sister was born on December 10th as was Emily Dickenson; I visited her home in Amherst, (see photos) Massachusetts this past summer.       In honor of birthdays, a brilliant poem from Billy Collins. Let’s just call this BIRTHDAY-POETRY WEDNESDAY.   Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson. Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes by BILLY COLLINS First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the … Continue reading →

A Fair Memory (revised)

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      rewritten from previous post A Fair Memory On a NYC bus, hired for a trip to the 1964 World’s Fair, were sophomores and juniors from a dingy, gray high school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that was shaped like the letter E: It housed the middle class and the poor. On a beautiful Spring day we were going to Flushing Meadow Park, in Queens, New York. There weren’t enough seats; some of us had to stand. I was near the well by the door, holding onto a pole facing the people in the seats nearby: … Continue reading →

C is for … oh so corny

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  C is for cat, who is still at the vet … he’s “agent orange,” a mighty fine pet C is for cancer, it took poor Play’s leg  … now an infection keeps him in bed C is for carrots, they go in the juice … with six pounds of other stuff you can really get sluiced   C is for Christmas cactus, it bloomed on November 5th, right on my birthday … I’d say that’s a gift!   C is for carnations, chrysanthemums, too, in a big bouquet … my loved ones said, “these are for you.”   C … Continue reading →

Poetry: The Afterlife by Billy Collins

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THE AFTERLIFE by Billy Collins They’re moving off in all imaginable directions, each according to his own private belief, and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal: that everyone is right, as it turns out. you go to the place you always thought you would go, the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head. Some are being shot into a funnel of flashing colors into a zone of light, white as a January sun. Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute … Continue reading →