Rachel Hadas

M ellow and glowing with autumnal redA nd also ochre striped with golden light,R epainted bedroom with a brand new bedL eft made up, crisp sheets awaiting night;O ld layers overlaid with something fresh,N ew, and sorting out, giving away,C lear for a different union of fleshA nd spirit, window to . . . . Continue Reading »

Winter strains toward spring.A bird is singing in a leafless tree.The river gleams, the sidewalks glint with iceor with a hint of possibility.A blade of sun bisects the afternoonstreet. In such a slippery spot I fell,righted myself, stood up,and found myself no longer in the winterbut in a city and . . . . Continue Reading »

For Gerd SternThe row of books is talking like a ghostin mildewy damp voices. Look at me.Choose me as I was chosen by your host.Each guest’s a world. Each world welcomes a guest.When you have had enough of sun and seaa line of books will beckon, friendly ghostfrom a dim realm where conversations . . . . Continue Reading »

To land in a story whose end I do not know— as if we ever saw to any end: I try to keep my balance, high and low. The sliver of this moon, discreet and new— Waxing? Waning? I forget. They blend in a sky whose limits we don’t know. . . . . Continue Reading »

After two clashing days—ultramarine      overlaid with vermilion— it came to me late the third afternoon       that as between anger and grief there’s no comparison. The choice is easy. Does one have a choice? . . . . Continue Reading »

The elements were stark: a winter wall,snow, ice, snapped wrist. Through the breakI could just glimpse the color of the bone.But cold and white, the January crust,weren’t the whole story. Seasons turn,bones knit, a secret stirs beneath the snow. . . . . Continue Reading »

Early light slants low across the lawn.Cuplike, this little valley brims with sun.Pages fill and empty. In the mistof a still morning, nothing’s out of . . . . Continue Reading »

I would have liked to linger in this room, But a rough wind was blowing. To wake up and go back to sleep beside you, But dawn was showing. Down on the river, a boat with a black sail. I must be going. . . . . Continue Reading »

Her hair still hardly touched with grey, and wound in gleaming braids around her head, my mother, who in life was not so given to smiling, grinned in last night’s dream from ear to ear the double meaning of archaic smiles: “I am alive” and also “I am dead.” A snapshot from . . . . Continue Reading »

Word trickled down the aisle that he had died. My first response: how did they even know? Grief was an afterthought. He’d long been gone; had only just sufficiently revived to totter to his feet and say hello (or else goodbye)”impossibly removed, frail, struggling to sit or stand or . . . . Continue Reading »