|
|
|
Best Poems From
YEN CRESS
(3/9/43)
|
|
| |
|
|
33.
|
Perspective
A lovely orange-and-black Gulf Fritillary
visits my garden,
looking for the passion vine
where she spent her youth.
Ah! There it is by the fence,
just as she seems to recall
from when she still had her spiky hairs,
before she got her glorious wings.
She stops just for a moment,
squeezes out a tiny egg,
and another,
and another,
and another,
each on its own five-fingered leaf,
as her mother had done.
Then she is gone.
The responsibilities of motherhood
have taken only a few moments
of her life.
But perhaps that's a very long time
in butterfly-years.
Yen Cress
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
34.
|
Questions for My Canary
Speck of yellow, cheery song,
Toothpick legs below,
Sweet canary in a cage,
How much do you know?
Do you know of warring men,
Know of fearful strife?
Battlefields in far-off lands?
Death by gun or knife?
When you eat your daily seeds,
Do you think of boys
Living out of garbage cans,
Never owning toys?
Do you know of little girls
Wearing rags for clothes?
Little bird in feathered dress,
What about all those?
Someone cleans your cage each day,
Gives you special treats.
Do you know of homeless babes
Living in the streets?
Happy bird, delightful chum,
Have you suffered pain?
Do you know the grief of death?
Have you loved in vain?
Do you think of sin and hell,
Sitting on your perch?
Is there guilt in someone who
Never goes to church?
Would you like to take my place,
Live as humans do?
Sheltered in your gilded cage,
What is life to you?
I have fear, and pain, and doubt,
Living out here, free.
But - a cage? I'd rather die!
Give me liberty!
Yen Cress
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
35.
|
Silky
Ethereal fibers cover
A barely audible purr
Yellow eyes aglow in the dimness
Silently approach on padded toes
To comfort me on a February night
Yen Cress
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
36.
|
Sneak Peek
What is that little sound I hear?
A rustle, a faint stirring,
A slight brushing, a scratch.
I slowly turn and hold myself still and silent,
Looking toward the corner of my study,
Suspecting an uninvited guest.
I have seen signs
Of a miniature invasion-
Some shredded paper,
The nibbled corners of a treasured volume-
'Stuart Little.'
(Is someone trying to talk to me?)
The corner of my eye catches a slight blur.
Aha!
A tiny gray face peeks at me
From behind my jewelry box.
Whiskers quiver.
He dashes off,
Seeking a safe corner
In which to disappear once more.
Yen Cress
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|