11.27.07
Praise Song by Barbara Crooker
Praise Song
Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there’s left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.
~ Barbara Crooker ~
(Abalone Moon, Summer 2004)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Praise_Song.html
Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html
maryt
11.11.07
Omoni by Soo Young Lim
She cleans out mackerel in the sink,
running a knife neatly through the silver underbelly
just as her mother had shown her so many years ago.
At fourteen, she ran away to Seoul,
living with a distant aunt and working
long hours in a factory.
She lasted a month in night school,
taking pills to stay awake until her nose bled from exhaustion.
For six years, she was begged to return home
before her mother and three brothers came to the city
without choice.
After moving to America, she saw her mother only once more,
who was by then frail from decades of wear,
her once-soft voice stolen by sickness.
Now, after three years of grief,
she has yet to visit the grave of the woman she called omoni.
She cries softly in the bathroom each night.
I pretend not to hear the sobs escaping through
the sound of running water.
Soo Young Lim
via Poetry.com
