sifting through the dark

Rugelah, 5 A.M.

by Sondra Gash

The house is dark and breathing
deep under the covers.
I tiptoe to the kitchen,
lift bowls from the shelf,
mix cream cheese and butter.
Flour dusts my fingers
as I roll dough into a circle,
spread blackberry jam
with the back of a spoon
the way Mama taught me.
I work quickly, leaning over,
sprinkling nuts and raisins
on top, my hands
shaping ovals, folding,
crimping edges.

Lights sifts through the windows
And I think of Mama, coming
home after so many months,
how we baked before dawn,
I, barefoot, she in nightgown
and slippers. Now I slide
the tray into the oven
and glide through the quiet
to wait for the raising.

trumpeting winds

There came a wind like a bugle by Emily Dickinson

There came a wind like a bugle; It quivered through the grass, And a green chill upon the heat So ominous did pass We barred the windows and the doors As from an emerald ghost; The doom’s electric moccasin That very instant passed. On a strange mob of panting trees, And fences fled away, And rivers where the houses ran Those looked that lived—that Day— The bell within the steeple wild The flying tidings whirled. How much can come And much can go, And yet abide the world!

awake in the night

'Had I not been awake...'

by Seamus Heaney

Had I not been awake I would have missed it,
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore

And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence;
Had I not been awake I would have missed it

It came and went so unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,

A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
Afterwards. And not now.

Hot Tomato

I'm not one to pop a 'mater in my mouth, but this poem almost makes me want to.

Cherry Tomatoes

by Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
I sit on the ground
in the garden of Carmel,
picking ripe cherry tomatoes
and eating them.
They are so ripe that the skin is split,
so warm and sweet
from the attentions of the sun,
the juice bursts in my mouth,
an ecstatic taste,
and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,
sloshing in the saliva of August.
Hummingbirds halo me there,
in the great green silence,
and my own bursting heart
splits me with life.

Midsummer Music & Muse: A Night of Spoken Word, Music & Mixed Media