Archive
Backyard Event
(with a chorus for jays and bees)
The rosemary spills from the clench of the pot
the flux and the sex
of a gravelly musk.
Necessity sniffs at those ravels of leaves
and leaves her with flowers,
cerulean, mute.
In the spice and the peace of the sprawl of the morning,
her joy ruffles up,
the bee from its bloom.
HKYE! HKYE! HKYE!
Huhzzuzzah, huzzah.
Rosemary Starace (website) lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a small city in the middle of a big, hilly forest. She’s the author of Requitements and co-editor of Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-po Listserv, with Moira Richards and Lesley Wheeler. Her work has appeared in Orion, Blueline, Studio, and elsewhere, including other issues of qarrtsiluni.
Wild animals, come to the porch
to feed me. Oh please me
with your animals,
give your raccoon her mask,
play harp
in the dark, in the dark, in the spider
corners of the porch—
Your fingers!
and the columns, wrapped
in a tangle of yelps
and vine,
bring down the melodious roof.
Oh don’t so admire,
don’t add to desire,
oh weight of desire,
heaviest of moons,
what do you ask?
Rosemary Starace (website) lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a small city in the middle of a big, hilly forest. She’s the author of Requitements and co-editor of Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-po Listserv, with Moira Richards and Lesley Wheeler. Her work has appeared in Orion, Blueline, Studio, and elsewhere, including other issues of qarrtsiluni.
A Red Sky
A red sky although the day has passed in gray.
So many times I’ve seen it linger
in the woods across the street. I have a book that tells me
I should seek my inner answer,
it says: could be a beast not a pretty man not a white horse—
doesn’t say a red sky, yet out I fly
to greet it, it has showed for me I’m sure.
I’ve got a shovel with me, I will lift
a bridal whiteness to it, oh my snow age
does not dissuade. The sky behind the trees
is shy, I notice it arrives each night no closer.
Hey, I say, my purple beret is jaunty,
I dressed all rococo for you, my hair-do flares
out in the wind, a sky would like that, no?
You are so red is this a blush what of it—stumble
forth, I say, I think I’m yours come get me.
Why hang back, time passes quick
the day’s fast gone, and you of all skies
should know this—my book insists that I must
speak with you, so come oh come, I am standing
in front of my house at the top of the hill.
I will be here every night.
Rosemary Starace writes and makes visual art in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, US. She is author of the poetry collection Requitements and co-editor, with Moira Richards and Lesley Wheeler, of the anthology Letters to the World. Her poems can be seen online at Orion, Umbrella, and, along with an essay on adoption and poetics, in Poets on Adoption. More of her writing and art appear on her website.
Heart’s Desire
Artemis—
I choose my feathers and stripes,
believe this. I marry nock
unto the bow.
My vow travels
with the avid
shockwave of the pluck;
it leaves a whir of thin air
about the ear.
I love
to load and pull back—
release the grip
of will.
My ache’s
my aim; my arrow
stakes its claim
exactly.
Rosemary Starace writes and paints in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. She is co-editor, with Moira Richards and Lesley Wheeler, of Letters to the World, an international poetry anthology representing the Wom-po Listserv (Red Hen Press). She is author of the poetry collection Requitements (Elephant Tree House). Her poems can be seen online at Orion and Umbrella. More writing, art, and book information appear on her website.
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