“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too was a gift.” - Mary Oliver
Kentucky native, Rosemarie Wurth-Grice is a retired National Board Certified Teacher and founding member of the Not Dead Poets Society. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in Kentucky Monthly, Kudzu, and the Journal of Kentucky Studies. Her chapbook, Darkness Called Us Home, is forthcoming in 2025 by Finishing Line Press.
She joins us via Zoom from her home.
Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Rosemarie, what poems will you be sharing with us today?
Vestigial
- forming a very small remnant of something that was once larger
You gave me memories I could have tucked away
like cherished linens in a cedar-lined chest
but you knew I could never fold anything neatly.
Instead, these memories are glistening salamanders with
vestigial tails— old survivors of life’s skirmishes.
They swim beneath the surface of woodland streams
where light glides gently over the cedars
as effortless as birds in flight
---
One for Sorrow
I’m not as I once was, yet still lost
Trying to find my way through this forest
wandering amidst trees that continue to fall
The dead stand on hope
the dying drop one brown leaf at a time
An artist, not I, dreamt up this sordid soiree
a girl on a hill sits among avian oracles
an October wind rips pages from her hymnal
Blessed Assurance disappears in a grief grey sky
Does she count two for joy or three for a girl
discover seven for secrets untold
until fourteen crows sport on the canvas
one more than the devil himself?
Will the crows come to tea if I spread a blanket
put out cookies, sweet fruit, and fresh baked pie?
Will they drink thick cream, and herbal tea from fine China?
I wonder what happens
if I step out of this picture
left the girl with her choices and frolicking crows
Would being free and being lost feel the same?
---
How is it Possible?
In Memoriam for Keaton & Ford
How is it possible?
You left and the sun still rose
Children stirred from their slumber
Birds gathered in hedges and sang
You left and we fell silent
expecting you to fill the doorway
take a seat at our table
You left and the room echoes
with your emptiness
How is it possible?
With your last breath,
we kept breathing
---
Hibernation
On the anniversary of my brother’s death
It’s time to go into my cave again
The dry leaves in the forest hum a lullaby
The dusk foretells an early frost
I’ve gorged on trout and pomegranate
My walk grows slow and padded
clawed tree bark marks my trail
Soon there will be winter dreams of ripe
raspberries and cold streams to wash my face
What are twenty years to us my brother?
I thought of you in the last days…you on your
mountaintop looking over the world
One day you fell asleep and forgot to wake
I’ll sweep the cave floor clean of bones
and lay down to sleep the old sleep
among pine boughs and moss
owl feathers and rabbit fur
If there are dreams in death
look for me on the mountain trail
ambling along the timberline
---
Winter Rain
Listen to the sky shedding
wet shades of grey
a thousand cat feet
tromping on the eaves
To sit here by a fire
solitary
except
for a small sleeping dog
is to be content in warm
sylvan silences
You've been listening to the poems of Rosemarie Wurth-Grice on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.
