Poem of the Month – September 2021: After the Cremation by Martha Landman

Congratulations to Martha Landman, winner, September 2021 Poem of the Month, as selected by 2021 FSP Anthology editors Louise Nicholas and Judy Dally.


After the Cremation
by Martha Landman

I polish the copperplate, sing laments to your ashes
until the earth questions the rain, persecuting it
for the myth of peaceful words in a lifeless land.
I’m an empty-handed sailor in a foreign port.
We converse in sign language. I tell your ashes
the nut trees are dry, the pump is broken, the ostrich
next door had two chicks.  I tell them there are days
when even the sea is quiet, unfamiliar with its own undercurrent.
I tell them my heart is a windmill in the wilderness, a lake,
and a preposterous field of sun-red amaryllis. I tell them 
there are times when the zebras in the backwoods
each has a different snort to let you know 
of predators in the underbrush. I tell them horizons can be
further away than you thought, wider than the arms
of a universal god, lonelier than the imposing skeleton 
of a leadwood tree on the African plains. I tell them 
you are a song sharper than the whistling thorn tree.
I put on my dirt sandals, cut my hair with pruning shears.


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