Barbara Siegel Carlson

 
Epistle to the Late Fall Weeds

At dawn you glow,
along with the stones in the dirt road.
Each hollow seed is

a soul partly returned
from the other side.

I can’t know
each of your lives
any more than I can know mine.

At the pond my shadow disappears.

I wait for another life
to grow from this one,
watching you lightly sway
as the ducks take off

disheveling the water and spreading it
in soundless tones
that call our lost shadows home.

Found among the Lost

Not my glove but my empty hand.
Not my empty hand, but the opening
in a pocket where the chill slips through.

A ring, a necklace with its gold
medallion, the last watch
my grandfather bought me, my grandmother without
saying goodbye.

Papers recording the passages
of those I loved. Papers that crumble
at a touch found
in the drawer of a forgotten desk.

Beside a bench in the cemetery, among
the patches of moss, white violets. A flutter
without a voice or name—

Not bewilderment
but breath of the wounded, unrequited,
rising. Not lost but given the scent
of what blossoms.

A corner where one can come
and go. Places for the soul to lie down
and be gathered.
 

Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of three poetry collections, most recently What Drifted Here (Cherry Grove, 2023). Her poetry and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Acumen, Lily Poetry Review, and Verse Daily. She edits poetry in translation at Solstice LitMag. website

<< Lawrence Bridges

Dennis Cummings >>