Poetry

Three Poems By Matilda Jane Kraemer

For Christina

I wish for you the unsung songs of birds,
The beauty of all flowers yet to come,
And words
Shaped soft and pink against
The thinner edges of
Reality.

O Little One, your innocence
Can win a world gone stale –
To newer hopes, the memory
Of bird and blossom
And the softer heartbeat
That is love.

Cocoon

I’ve woven grief around me
Like cocoon
And, fetus-like, I crouch,
Enwrapped in dark.
Solitary.
Feeding on the past for sustenance.

At the shore, a solitary gull
Sits on a sandbar
Alone
Between the sea and sky.

I am analogous to him,
But he can fly.
But he can fly.

Escape

The therapy of travel:
Kaleidoscope of color, sharp-edged sounds,
Confetti-glitter of activity.
The urgency of waiting crowds
Whirls me from grief’s complacency.

I belong here, nameless, among the unnamed.
The superficial friendship beckons, limited
By journey’s distance. Waiting ears and vacant smiles
Welcome me. All is transient as life itself.

I plunge into the crowd-sea, caught in its current.
No permanence is here, no claim
For future meetings.

(Returning to an empty house,
Forgetting, I call out your name.)