Poems by Sara Barnett

Lawn Story

by Sara Barnett

Sara has lived on both American coasts and now happily narrows between the East and Hudson Rivers.

Out by the stump
when I was small
became a table

I would lay my china cups
pretend to
ladle

While my father,
taking seed that would be flowers,
sowed my initials in the grass to bloom in blue.

These are the first to rise come springtime
little cockle bells of azure
spelling enchantment and tolling true love true

This fall when I visited in November
my father’s pride and joy: his row forsythia
was fallow

Save one sprung up in all its yellow.
out by the stump,
where we were young.

Where still do
grow the cockles,
where in autumn an April bush is burning

and I kid you not -
adjacent to the fallen timber
(that same old stump where we would linger)

On that mountain road,
Arisen new! has come along
An apple tree.