Four Poems

Shelda Hale

I am the sturdy weed

the first bouquet for Mothers

praise me

worship me

my leaves in a salad nourish

my blooms are the first

to herald Spring

I thrive, thrum tunes

for ants to dance

grasshoppers to hum

my Sun star loves me,

calls me by my ancient name

what other plant soul

bears feather furls

invites children to purse

lips? blow wispy wishes?

their breaths fly me

above concrete cracks

where I’ve clung so long

I, Dandelion Child

of hardscrabble hours

of government housing

tenant farms

abandoned playgrounds

along rutted, dirt roads

of trailer park towns

around tired Ohio riverbanks

rickety railroad ties

rusted steel bridges

I, Daughter of Dust, carried

on frayed farmers’ pants cuffs

to empty peeling, red tobacco barns

to clay-packed paths, gray

leading to slick cave floors

of limestone cliffs

of haunted church yards

below sinking flood walls

of lonely graves resting

beneath bright yellow blankets

Museum Life

Voice nearly a whisper

sticky as the ball of dough

that fills my palm

my sister speaks

from her flip-phone. She frets

over every slight done her,

as I pinch this dough, her life

stretchy as this ball

I roll, takes on whatever shape

it’s placed in—round

or square or flat

like this soft mass between

my fingers. Her days

catalogued with nothing

to hold her, to show

which way to go, nobody

to help, she says. Her pain

not smooth like the rising skin

of this brioche—but cracked,

neighbors not to be trusted, her woodcuts,

ink drawings, paintings, abandoned

as she was by her husband,

as if she lives in a museum with ghosts,

drapes drawn, lights dimmed

to the least wattage possible

to preserve the art that’s left.

My nails press the dough that, alive,

pushes back. Her words die

another death. 

Garden Song

Clematis, stubborn teacher

whose tendrils anchor, twiggy

& parched, bare, seem dead

but her new leaves above

are green flames of hope

I lift her tiny purple smiles

to the arch's next level

imagine her earthy sigh

Ahhhhh

long to pull her viny bones

to coil up the trellis, guide her,

but No! she seems to whimper

I release each spring bundle

straining toward the arch top

leave well enough alone

For the tow-headed boy

who tricked the town doctor

into paying fifty cents

for a false-bottom basket of dandelions

pulled from his front yard

For the blue-eyed boy perched on the gate

almost kicked out from under him

by big brothers playing posse

who rounded him up, ready to hang him high

until Granny looked up from washing dishes

For the teen with the gold-capped tooth

who lied about his age to join the Navy

who tucked crisp dollar bills into his shoes

got caught, found himself in the brig,

scared and shipbound in Singapore

For his dog, Dixie, who tramped the hills for rabbits

as dad breathed the cold fall mist, toting his 22

how warm his old hunting jacket

how soft his blue flannel shirt

how sad his rusted, red Chevy pickup

now claimed by mud daubers

For the phone he used the night he called

and his tears I couldn’t wipe away

and the hurt in his voice that choked

no awards or trophies or ribbons

I could’ve been something

I know I could’ve been something

For the children and the wife who depended on him

the night classes for his electrician’s license

the black lunch box kept on top of our Frigidaire

the Millwright Union journeyman’s card

the gray cotton workpants with wide cuffs

the steel-toed boots waiting by the back door

For every honest morning faced and faced

and every scar earned

and every child kissed

turning over in sleep