Mona Lydon-Rochelle
SNOW BY THE SEA
Yesterday, in silent
snow laden maples & elms,
we laid a spray of bittersweet
on his headstone.
Four years had passed
since his death.
Today, on the feast of Saint Valentine,
I hear my mother’s mute sobs, swanlike, from behind her locked
bedroom door & in the dark, dank hall, I whimper
like a beggar,
Tell me you won’t leave me too.
I wonder how she’s survived these four years.
And then, I breathe
a poem
of love
for her.
There is a no quiet lap for me to rest on.
So, I flee & steal out of our cottage
into the blizzard, listening
to the roar of sea and waves,
seeking refuge in the fretwork
of frozen fields, treading
a familiar path to the pond
over snowdrifts.
The dark night is cold.
The pond’s ice is thin.
The ocean thunders.
I disremember.
Or do I misremember?
I am only five.
VILLANELLE: EVER GRATEFUL
Why spume and fume sullen poems
in clichéd superficiality,
while a quartet of meadowlarks roam?
Meadowlark bell-songs of plainsong atone
in burnished copper, walnut, honey.
So, why spume and fume sullen poems?
Gulls squabble for raw scallop flesh in green seafoam.
Lean thin lipped high-and-mighty bitches whine factitiously,
despite a rhyme of meadowlarks roaming.
Evening’s laden with poet’s jasmine and citron
and beyond a fawn beds peacefully.
Why spume and fume sullen poems?
Inherited hatred haunts one’s soul unbeknown?
An infestation of keening banshees blasphemy?
I heard a tercet of meadowlarks roam
since my brother’s father returned home,
and the stinging hive of envy’s gone.
I’d spumed and fumed sullen poems,
until a villanelle of meadowlarks roamed.
PANTOUM OF LOVE BY THE ATLANTIC
Her mood’s taciturn, a tide of ebbing memories,
galloping bareback on the hem of the sea
in simmering heat of a late June day,
heart in shreds, She couldn’t tell another.
Cantering bareback on the hem of the sea,
remembering the fragrance of his kiss,
her heart in shreds, She couldn’t tell another.
What is it we love in those we love?
The fragrance of a kiss, no tryst,
on a bed of alyssum on a fabled night?
What is it we love in those we love?
Dunes of words worn white by keening winds?
On a bed of incensed alyssum one fabled night,
kindled by sweetness gone mad,
their dunes of words wore white in keening winds,
under the innocence of a lazurite sky.
Kindled by sweetness gone mad,
shipwrecked one thousand times,
under the innocent lazurite sky,
she wrote secrets in the sand.
Shipwrecked one hundred thousand times,
she walked past granite cliffs and empty cottages,
writing secrets in the sand, until
she slipped barefoot into Saint Mary’s chapel silently.
She walked past granite cliffs and empty cottages,
without him, wondering what’s wrong with her,
slipping into Saint Mary’s chapel silently,
longing for love.
What’s wrong with her?
In simmering heat of a late June day,
longing to change,
her mood taciturn, a tide of yearning memories.