It’s To Die For
the beauty of
this night,
its strange glow
of light rising
after days
of heavy rain.
At nightfall
the sky is alight
with pink
and yellow fire—
owlet moths
that thought
they were hidden
are in a frenzy over
the last purple spikes
of catnip. You and I
walk without words
as rain returns,
darkness resettles.
I have finally
figured it out,
I say: the only
price we must pay
for all this beauty
is to die for it.
Mid-September
This morning I stoop
to pull wild grass away
from bleeding hearts
and columbine, untangle
iris from spiderwort.
Has it been since June
that I knelt upon this ground?
A summer overgrown
has choked the simple
beginnings of spring—
an elderly mother’s move,
repairs to a rundown home,
common occurrences of life
that like the sheaths
of lady’s thumb
choke, cover, obscure
adjacent bloom.
I weed along toward noon.
Sun lightens the delicate leaves
of coral bells, bare black
earth again revealed,
and I lean heavily on
soil scarcely redeemed.
Judith Grissmer’s work has been published in the Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, the Golden Nib Online Anthology (2010 first place in poetry VA Writers Club), The Blue Ridge Anthology (2008/2010 first place in poetry, Blue Ridge Writers Club), The Alembic, Crack the Spine, Mikrokosmos Journal, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Work is forthcoming in the Edison Literary Review and Penmen Review. She has attended poetry workshops and classes in universities and writing centers, worked independently with instructors at those centers, and has participated in writers’ critique groups for many years.
