homage to D.H. Lawrence
I return too often
to the bayou land of my marriage
there: lone cypress
folded in like a dark thought
for which the language has been lost
cold cypress
barely decipherable
naked not dead in winter
full of dread
dark cypress
words hollow as seed pods
in winter have shed their sound
going with quietness
their business forgotten
all that is left is shadow
a futile fist raised against
a graying sky
cypress
dusky slim
marrow thought of past time
more seen darkly old thought:
perishable
while you cypress
remain
brooding diffident a skeleton
to hang memory on
revenant of the vanished echoes
of the darkly lost
too much has been buried
in the dusk at the back
of cypresses
Cordelia Hanemann is currently a practicing writer and artist in Raleigh, NC. A retired professor of English at Campbell University, she has published in numerous journals including Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Southwestern Review, and Laurel Review; anthologies, The Poet Magazine's new anthology, Friends and Friendship and forthcoming, Adversity, Heron Clan and Kakalak and in her own chapbook, Through a Glass Darkly. Her poems have won awards and been nominated for Pushcarts. Recently the featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in Cajun Louisiana.
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