African Heart
last night a canyon wind killed eight swans
in a freak storm grass in the cemetery pulled up like cheap carpet
pine trees blown down with headstones in their roots
my father’s Alzheimer’s holds him to the recliner
strapped in by gravity and his muscle’s forgetfulness
when we first moved south the wind blew every day
kicking up clay dust in white-grey devils in the pasture
mom goes from the kitchen to the hospital bed
dozens of times a day swallowing her tears
yesterday the nurse from Home Health told my mother
you have an African heart thinking to praise her
for the way she cares for him
but my mother is a worn-out deck of cards
with all the hearts turned upside down the constant wind has turned her inside out
.
Contemplation
got side-tracked to template
as in –shaped
-a pattern for process
-to distribute the weight
-an under support
-a gauge to overlay
-superimpose
ornament graphic
which of course
is what we do
in the act of contemplating
overlap one thought
on top of another
on top of another
to follow a pattern until
we can superimpose
another pattern
to make a new pattern
like intricate lace
as in watching shadows
move across the grass
inventing and reinventing
shapes thoughts
and new ornaments and
graphics over the lawn
no wonder we worshiped trees
in the past
rough bark under the palms
smell of sap and earth
how the wind moves the tree
while we hold on
like tiny bugs enveloped in wood
and the shape of music in leaves
varying in pitch from
Gingko to Oak to Holly
each symphony a template
for other movements
in the symphony
a melody a cacophony
the prestidigitation
of sun and leaves
and branches
that do not stop moving
until they do until night
pulls all the shadows together
into one darkness
then I contemplate
how much this pattern
is a story of mortality
distributing the weight
of living to support
the years I have
or don’t have left
.
Maureen Clark’s first book, This Insatiable August, was released by Signature Books in 2024. She has been nominated twice for a 2024 Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Once Upon a Time Mormon, won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Utah Original Writing Competition. She received her MFA from the University of Utah, where she taught for 20 years. She was president of Writers @ Work 1999-2001. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly, Thimble Literary Journal, Cool Beans Literary Magazine, and Kestrel.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 