Marjorie Hanft
Marjorie Hanft worked in community and university mental health and taught in the psychology department at Eastern Illinois University until retirement in 2015. She is a graduate of Beloit College, Brown University’s graduate writing program, and has a second MA from the University of Oklahoma with a focus on substance disorder counseling. For the past thirteen years she has served as lay worship leader for the smallest Reform Jewish congregation in North America.. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Alte, Calyx, Cauldron Anthology, First Literary Review-East, Muddy River Poetry Review, Obsidian, and Persimmon Tree, and in various anthologies.
Trivia of Green
Because who doesn’t like the symbol of spring
think chlorophyll in grass & other things that grow
and because it is restful to the eyes
barium salts are used to make green sparks in fireworks.
Jade emerald malachite hiddenite peridot
my mother’s eyes but not mine she said
and I wasn’t supposed to wear her color either
as it represents royalty as in the cloth the Mona Lisa wears
& I want to believe it heals because suicides dropped
34% when London’s Blackfriars Bridge was painted green
& there are always viridescent fish & birds
amphibians & reptiles to imagine surrounding
the pagan green man of the woods waiting at dusk
for that elusive green flash of sunset.
A Different Season in Cobden, Illinois
Thankful for surprise
violets near the pines tall
kitchen windows the baby’s
hair a cinnamon stick
stirring up a sky the color
of November. Who says
there’s nothing to dream
about in a tiny town full of
apple orchards where hills
resemble foothills though
there is no mountain range?
After Sappho (in rural Illinois)
In praise of Adonis in praise of Hera
one eye on the goldest
apple perched too high
though at sunrise arrows fly
dispersing deer across the fields
of corn & beans where
combines are rasping lyres.
Weave dill & wear
helichryse dance the dance
of the Curetes before you watch
a moonrise before you spot
the Pleiades before you sleep.
More Light
I’ve been thinking about the day in August
when my mother died which just happens to be
Goethe’s birthday. Poetry was not what he was
proud of but the science of color an iron oxide
named for him. My mother liked to paint
and there’s her painting of a yellow building
beside a palm tree blue sky white puff
clouds on a wall in my home. Did free
thinker Goethe really ask for more light
when he died? Who knows? He said blue
deepens mildly into red & on his color
wheel it’s yellow that’s face to face with blue.
Spring Trail Prayer
Heading off on a trail that begins alongside a field of cows. Do they go straight
on their way? Do they sing? & what do I carry today or any day an ark
on my back? I think I’d rather be Kokopelli than a member of the tribe
of Kahat at least when the moon wanes carrying a flute dancing off
trail wearing a mask a few feathers on my head especially when
teenagers show up congregating which they absolutely are not supposed
to be doing right now so that I hop away into a ravine where a skink or a toad
hides spying fiddlehead fern fronds jack-in-the pulpit fading spring beauties wake
robin a hundred shooting stars (Dodecatheon) first dogwood blooms & all else
that is ephemeral &/or holy each & every spring (oblivious to the plight
of humans). May the box turtles bless us and keep us (dodging all mower blades)
& mayapples deal graciously with us. May the phlox rings puccoons violets Virginia
bluebells & swamp buttercups bestow favor on us & grant us peace.
Poem Derived from an Article Called A Hungry Cat
(Journal of Geological Education, 1994)
Old places rocks food men doing what they like to do
in the company of a cat men who like to climb who spit
on coccoliths scrutinize the dust of the universe
in Perugia or anywhere indifferent to the fact that the cats of Italy
are Egyptian imports quick though to notice when a greeting
announces the wrong time of day or when a chicken dish can’t be
replicated yet can be shared with a stray who then finds
it easy to sleep paws crossed & tucked underneath.
Light(s) at the End of the Tunnel
There must be a reason I’d rather listen to women
poets these days Valentine mentioned strange lights
beyond the hospital room (may her memory
be for a blessing). Lowell saw only the train
& Bukowski was all about how there isn’t even
a tunnel. Rukeyser on the other hand always
saw the tunnel believing no one ever needed
to stand inside. If you do happen to hang out
in the tunnel of oblivion festive illuminants
could be strung from one end to the other.
