Your Favorite Poems - Page 2

macele · 12-13-2013, 12:50 PM

Dead Butterfly

BY ELLEN BASS

For months my daughter carried
a dead monarch in a quart mason jar.
To and from school in her backpack,
to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table
it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast.
She took it to bed, propped by her pillow.

Was it the year her brother was born?
Was this her own too-fragile baby
that had lived—so briefly—in its glassed world?
Or the year she refused to go to her father’s house?
Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there?

This plump child in her rolled-down socks
I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me
and carry safe again. What was her fierce
commitment? I never understood.
We just lived with the dead winged thing
as part of her, as part of us,
weightless in its heavy jar.

Kätzchen · 01-03-2014, 10:33 PM

On the road through the clouds
is there a shortcut
to the summer moon?

~Den Sute-Jo

(pp. 69)

Written On The Sky:
Poems from the Japanese
Translated by, Kenneth Rexroth
(New York, NY).

01-03-2014, 10:33 PM	#2
Kätzchen Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Join Date: May 2010 Location: @ home with my granddaughter, chosen friends & family. ツ Posts: 16,133 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 29,540 Thanked 33,561 Times in 10,673 Posts Rep Power: 21474868	On the road through the clouds is there a shortcut to the summer moon? ~Den Sute-Jo (pp. 69) Written On The Sky: Poems from the Japanese Translated by, Kenneth Rexroth (New York, NY). __________________ “Evil flourishes in darkness, Corruption flourishes in secrecy,” ~Attorney’s for the Epstein Sex Abuse Survivors.

12-13-2013, 12:50 PM	#1
macele Member How Do You Identify?: a bold-assed maximus Preferred Pronoun?: she Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: mississippi Posts: 1,066 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 3,178 Thanked 3,230 Times in 847 Posts Rep Power: 21474850	Dead Butterfly BY ELLEN BASS For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, propped by her pillow. Was it the year her brother was born? Was this her own too-fragile baby that had lived—so briefly—in its glassed world? Or the year she refused to go to her father’s house? Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there? This plump child in her rolled-down socks I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me and carry safe again. What was her fierce commitment? I never understood. We just lived with the dead winged thing as part of her, as part of us, weightless in its heavy jar.