Wade & Schwartz – November 2023

Sher Schwartz and Mary Ellen Wade traded art and words. Mary Ellen shared this image, titled “Cherry Blossom Punch,” with Sher:

In response, Sher wrote this poem:

Variations on a Blossom

             –after Mary Ellen Wade’s acrylic
                            Cherry Blossom Punch (2022)

Varieties of cherries––bride swallows oxheart, blackheart, Tartarian, 
morello. They all taste good rolling toward the back––virginal tongue.

Cherry rum-rum––pickled petals float but some drown,
flutter down––the bottom greets them––bounce-bounce!

Bird-cherry blossoms blow off sideways in the fierce wind. Come fruit. 
Cedar Waxwing (silk-tail) hops––branch to laden branch.

Japanese cherry blossoms––visitors’ smiling faces lift into petal lights,
haloed flowers that don’t bear fruit––travel well but fail to arrive.

A virgin wine waits on a shelf––fragrant petals inside a reddish-brown cabinet,
outside a darkling thrush ruffles and sings––her new moon rises.

Fantastic garlands of cherry blossoms and purple monkshood wrap Ophelia’s neck,
her ruddy-blooming cheeks fading, hair spread wide, floating down the creek she––

sings a frail old laud––she streams a dying blossom, along with bobbing limes, 
pumpkins and bitter cranberries––madness forgets her desire for arctic blue sky.

Punch & Judy strike back and forth again sticks clashing––pinata punctured 
candy spurts past petals edges of branches––peppered jubilations children shout!

A touch past bee-time––pale pink petals softly reach the donkeys’ backs––
raven’s wings throb––moving air sweetening the work animals’ plod to barn.

Quotes from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Inspired by ghazal poetic form.

* * * * *

Sher shared this poem with Mary Ellen:

White Pelican

fifty years of threaded marriage
woven connections broken
her body sickens strands untwine
her spirit though still sings
a clear, young soprano her
broken-open limitless milky pool
American pelicans circle
enormous white lusty throated birds
pondering patient and sturdy
webbed feet paddle a surge
a thrust of snowy teardrops spraying
white wings seen as black underneath
the birds burst up into their heavy glide
and it’s the up-up
we children love
to see her rise

 In response, Mary Ellen made this image, titled “Dawn”: