Photo by Evelyn A. So
This week's Outdoor Poet, Evelyn A. So, grew up on the East Coast and now lives near San Francisco.
Irises
On Vincent Van Gogh’s Irises, 1889
Too fresh to have withstood afternoon heat,
the irises linger in cerulean light.
A breeze caresses their spines. One-by-one,
they stir and their heavy heads lift from leaves
that pillowed them all night. Now they yawn awake,
open wide their mouths, stretch forth indigo tongues
with spots of gold. They settle down and wait
until I draw near
and stroke their satin
manes.
When I left my father’s garden for good, I pushed
their faces from my waist, shut my ears
to their pleas stay.
My father paces in the morning dew,
stoops to pick up fallen fruit. If I follow the rusted trail
past the white iris,
I may glimpse my father,
hair full of dust, hands and feet black with soil
from which he rose and returned to tend each morning.
Shall We Gather By The Sea
We munch on carrots and celery,
watch children bob like buoys with hair. Farther out
they try and stand and ride the swells. We listen to waves break,
reach for sandwiches, point to cranes overhead.
The whistle sounds. Children in wetsuits
shuffle, thin penguins
shadowed by their boards. Your son contemplates
lettuce from lunch, ship in the distance
where seabirds roost. We step off our towels. Hot! Hot!
Hop into cold waves and howl…The surf glistens,
knee-deep, pulling at our legs; we play statues before we go off
our rockers. Your love’s
home and I’m about to get on the road when you
set another plate at the table,
and I go out and your dog comes to me. I hold her
collar while you rinse her fur. Good girl. She suffers
the hose. Does she smell the sea
on our hair? Green as the aloe that soothes our skin,
green as your sandals by the door that wait like
magic slippers. Your son looks
at Andrew Goldsworthy’s photographs
after dinner, tracing each ephemeral
landscape.
About The Author Evelyn A. So's poetry has been published or is forthcoming in literary journals such as Caesura, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry, Red Wheelbarrow (National Edition), and Reed Magazine, among others.
The Outdoor Poet is edited by Robert Sward, author of numerous books of poetry including, most recently, New and Selected Poems: 1957-2011 (Red Hen Press). He lives on the Westside with his wife, the artist Gloria Alford, and a poodle mix named Cosette. Participation in The Outdoor Poet is by invitation.
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