THE ANNUAL SOLSTICE GATHERING
We’re planning our first almost normal
party since Covid struck. It feels
risky, perhaps dangerous. Who wants
to be creators of a super spreader?
But most people invited replied
within minutes, starved for a party,
longing to see friends cut off for
two years of isolation, loneliness.
It felt as if my world ended at the hill’s
bottom, the driveway giving way
to street no one came down. I don’t
know how many more I can give
but now the need pushes anxiety
aside like a curtain covering a door.
Come, guests! Faces I haven’t seen
in years, voices unheard, stories
untold. Silence has been packed
around me like those plastic commas
that come in mailed boxes. Covid
turned silence from golden to lead.
NECESSARY AND BEAUTIFUL
There are many less bees
and few butterflies, but I planted
a pollinator garden in three
narrow raised beds.
When the flowers bloomed
they attracted only me.
I picked none, not wanting
to deprive visitors.
Finally the bees came,
occasional butterflies,
and resident humming-
birds went for the reds.
It did its job: our squashes,
tomatoes, peppers were
properly pollinated. We
ate the bees’ hard work.
All the busy ones we owe
so much die from greedy
corporations, the lawn proud
who casually poison them.
I TRY TO BE PATIENT
The snow has worn through
like a balding rug and here
and there, increasingly, old
grass and insurgent daffodils
stick out. The birds are hungry
and a doe with her two fawns
and a yearling nibble rhodo-
dendrons, staring at me
who stand at the window
watching. They feel safe here.
Turkeys strut up the drive.
You can see the dinosaur
in them. I start cole crops
in peat pots and cover them.
When will the first crocuses
offer their cups to the sun?
Copyright 2022 Marge Piercy
Box 1473, Wellfleet MA 02667
Hagolem75@gmail.com
Marge Piercy is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one nonfiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the USA as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women’s lives.
