Alice Pero is the author of Thawed Stars and has been responsible for the long-running Moonday reading series. I hope I won’t steal her thunder by quoting in its entirety from one of her very best poems—its title is “Break of Dawn”: “After the break of dawn/ I stepped in the pieces/ all day.” The sadness and humor and cleverness are typical; I believe that Alice’s poetry serves as a kind of balm for her, for us; in a troubled world, she works/writes like a healer, and her poems (seldom referring to topics of the day or using proper names) are small oases full of insights and observations far from the everyday world and yet in spirit steeped in the everyday world of nature and human foibles. With her work, she tries to make sense of all that is around us, and so at heart she’s a teacher. Whether writing about the reflection of the trees in the water, or the birds on the wire, or the looks of people in the doctor’s waiting room, Alice always has something interesting to offer us, to help make us see.
THE
APPLES
I lean over on you
and the wind shudders
Trees stand at attention
Branches, startled awake
sway, dropping apples like
small bombs
the children rake away and eat
delicious fruit
They wonder at the fertility
of trees.
First published in Thawed Stars, SunIink Publications, 1999
I lean over on you
and the wind shudders
Trees stand at attention
Branches, startled awake
sway, dropping apples like
small bombs
the children rake away and eat
delicious fruit
They wonder at the fertility
of trees.
First published in Thawed Stars, SunIink Publications, 1999
© 2015
Alice Pero
Alice Pero ~ Featured Poet at the June 2015 Second Sunday Poetry Series.
Alice Pero ~ Featured Poet at the June 2015 Second Sunday Poetry Series.