with a feminist nod to ‘Fern Hill’

Oh I sang like the sea
When I was young and supple
And innocent with lust

Thus was my season
Spring, in its tulips, in its cups
All butter yellow atop the freshest green

Spring. The golden sap
Ran sugar-fine and pleasure tasted
Heady, pulsing where the skin
Touched air, spectacular desire

The way it was so long ago
When love was green and golden,
Easy in the windfall light

Here on the other side, Indian Summer
Deep red and bittersweet
Ripening to rot. Was that the all of it?

What now at sixty-five
As mercy edges further south
Every leaf and seedpod
……Rattling its bones

Star Coulbrooke

 

Star Coulbrooke, Poet Laureate of Logan City, Utah, is co-founder and coordinator of Helicon West, a bi-monthly open readings/featured readers series, and Poetry at Three, a long-standing local poetry writing group. Her poems are published widely in lit mags and anthologies. Her 2011 chapbook, Walking the Bear, is available online (through Digital Stacks in the University of Utah Marriott Library). Her newest poetry collection is Thin Spines of Memory. Star is director of the Utah State University Writing Center.

© 2017