Poet of The Month: Donna Pucciani
Last Things
A modest house,
filled with objects that will outlive me:
a favorite chair, well-worn;
the Tiffany-style lamp crafted years ago
by a friend, herself now long gone;
the earth-encrusted garden tools in the shed;
a pair of old boots; forgotten spices in the cupboard.
The sagging sofa, queen of the parlor,
betrayed by time, wonders where her parts
will be crumpled, crushed, recycled,
having kept watch far too long
over my efforts to avoid extinction,
my body chugging uphill like a drunken Sisyphus.
Someday, I will be mere dust
in a cookie tin urn, leaving behind
a closet full of faded clothes,
sighing on their silent hangers.
So it is with last things.
Dusty carpets and draperies
conspire to fete my death, a mute rabble
of objects without souls, tangible in their so-called life,
all wondering where I’ve gone, their human comrade
of many seasons who wandered about the house
in tattered slippers, looking for a taste
of the strawberry jam concocted by the women
of Didsbury village church, where, alas,
the belfry has forgotten to toll my demise.
Yet, here I am, flesh, bone, mind and tongue,
a sentient and regrettably mortal being,
still huffing my way to death’s palatial digs,
raising one last glass, one last poem.
Winter Snow
Wondrous deceiver,
you veil the earth with your white purity,
a pretense of peace. You make the gold
of autumn leaves blanche with decay,
net the musty mushrooms near the mailbox,
fill the rabbit holes with your trickery,
banish whatever was left of the garden,
the four-o-clocks that never could tell time.
Even the sky, blue as it was only yesterday,
succumbs to the curse of your immaculate cloak,
a pall of falling cloud. Humans huddle
in cold climes, drifting in a frozen cosmos,
dark and bright mingling, pits and patterns
becoming swirled taffeta, the treachery
of your smile ruling war-torn cities, refugees
hiding in basements, the homeless
on sidewalks turning to ice, this snow
a torture dressed in crystal.
