{"id":6706,"date":"2019-12-26T20:10:37","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T20:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=6706"},"modified":"2019-12-30T19:21:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T19:21:46","slug":"3-poems-marge-piercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=6706","title":{"rendered":"THREE POEMS – Marge Piercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

COUNTING EVERY PETAL<\/strong>
\n 
\nThe ground is finally bare, the snow
\nvanished into it as if it had not
\nsmothered the world for months.
\nIt might wrap its shroud around us
\n 
\nagain. We celebrated the first snow,
\ncounted ourselves lucky to cower
\nunder blizzards but by the 14th
\nstorm we are simply bored.
\n 
\nNow I search flower beds for green
\nsteeples rising, even for weeds,
\nanything that grows. Starving
\ndeer nibble rhododendron leaves.
\n 
\nMother with two fawns at dawn\u2019s
\nbreaking. I stay quiet, watching.
\nEvery day I count birds at feeders.
\nA pair of robins is an omen.
\n 
\nWhen I lived a year in San Francisco,
\nI missed spring, as if without pain
\nthere could be no pleasure. Winter
\nmakes the first crocus a celebration.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

 
\nTHE MONOTONOUS BIRD<\/strong>
\n 
\nHigh in the green rooms
\nof the sugar maple a strange
\nbird calls, calls, calls. Does
\nhe\/she seek a mate? Lost,
\nmaybe from the South, since
\nit\u2019s new to me who all spring
\nand summer know the words
\nspoken by bayberry warbler,
\ntohee, robin, brown thrasher,
\ncatbird, oriole, wren.
\n 
\nWhat does it want, crying
\ninsistent as a leaky faucet
\nhidden by the tiers of wide
\nflat leaves? What good
\nwould identifying do could
\nI spy it, Peterson in hand?
\nIt would still passionately
\nwant what it\u2019s not getting.
\nI hear my younger self
\nin its fierce cry of hunger.
\n 
\nHow many years and grey
\nrooms I haunted seeking
\na return of love, affairs
\ntearing flimsy in my avid
\nhands. Give me, give
\nwas my cry repetitive
\nand dismal. How tedious.
\nHow forlorn. I should have
\nmore patience with this
\nlonely traveler.
\n <\/p>\n

\n

 
\nHAND-ME-DOWNS<\/strong>
\n 
\nMother told me when I was little
\nthat the small depression under
\nmy nose and above my lips
\nwas the fingerprint of an angel.
\n 
\nShe said when a baby\u2019s curled
\nin the womb, it knows every
\nthing before and after, which
\nis why babies don\u2019t want
\n 
\nto be born. But the angel makes
\nus forget. Otherwise we\u2019d never
\nwillingly enter this chaos, this
\nmaelstrom of trouble and pain.
\n 
\nOf course we cried to exit that warm
\nsafe place where all we need
\nwas given us while we rocked,
\nricher than we\u2019d ever be again.
\n 
\nI wonder what it was I knew
\nthen \u2013 I wonder.
\n 
\nCopyright 2019 Marge Piercy
\nBox 1473, Wellfleet MA 02667
\nhagolem@c4.net
\n 
\n\"\"Marge Piercy has written 17 novels including The New York Times<\/em> Bestseller Gone To Soldiers<\/em><\/a>; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives<\/em><\/a> and The Longings of Women;<\/a><\/em> the classics Woman on the Edge of Time<\/em><\/a> and He, She and It<\/a><\/em>; and most recently Sex Wars<\/a>. <\/em>Among her 19<\/em> volumes of poetry the most recently published include The Hunger Moon: New & Selected Poems 1980-2010<\/a>, <\/em>and Made in Detroit<\/a>. <\/em>Her critically acclaimed memoir is Sleeping with Cats<\/em><\/a>. Born in center city Detroit, educated at the University of Michigan and Northwestern, the recipient of four honorary doctorates, she is active in antiwar, feminist and environmental causes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COUNTING EVERY PETAL   The ground is finally bare, the snow vanished into it as if it had not smothered the world for months. It might wrap its shroud around us   again. We celebrated the first snow, counted ourselves lucky to cower under blizzards but by the 14th storm we are simply bored.   [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[331,149],"class_list":["post-6706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-geneva-crocuses-by-kit-bigelow","tag-wikicommons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6706"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6858,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions\/6858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}