Here Is The Song I Bring

By Melissa A. Wood

Melissa is the accordionist with the Rosendale Improvement Association Brass Band and Social Club. She has had poetry published by Silver Birch Press. She is currently polishing her book of "ecopoems" about herbs and flowers. She studies etymology and builds sculptural-and-functional objects. She is also a multi-instrumentalist. She lives in New

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648956607

Book preview

Before Word

Bacteriologist

She stains the cell wall her

favorite gram stain. She

calls me close, leaning in,

adjusting the scope. Her

fingertips lightly touch my

back, a gentle push. Focus

reveals structural

complexity that is fixating.

Envision microorganisms

swimming in crystal violet.

Gloves of latex, harbor my

hands from the minuscule

grenade, thoughts swing on

saffron vines. I swoop into

a membrane,

just as it

divides.

Club Viral

Here is the cell, magnificent host

of a party gone viral. He said

with blood, sweat, or tears I

could get in urging, gripping,

enthralling me. He could pilot

me, just follow my inclination,

my urge, that drive that hits

every elfin in the laboratory club.

Some in Berlin claim that the

excitement is airborne, found in

the breath of a pig dancing desire

with a monkey from South

Africa.

Mycology

Mycology immersing

gazing into views of

you adorned with dyes

hours lost amid the

stacks falling into

colored forms of fungi,

my beast, all

consuming, you eat the

living. The tales are all

told in your spore print,

that is the gripping

sure print, but it is in

the infinitesimal

microscopic

monument where your

acidophils and alkaliphiles line up at the

builder’s vision where engrossing

binary fission rules the monument.

Spring

Here Is a Song

Here is a song I bring your ear.

Listen, my beating drum.

Listen, my beating drum.

The sky overhead kissing

rolling pastures where heifers

graze on grass combed by

wind.

Count the rhythm of the setting sun—slow it

down, count it out now you tell us Tell us all,

how many counts are in the measure, how long is

the sustain for the buzzing of the bees—the

cricket, the frog, the cicada? Sing a harmonic

beat like the bass, tabla, and singing saw. This,

and my beating heart, a minor song for you to

hear.

Hyacinth

I am not sorry for the discus blow that cut you down, Hyacinth.

My reward being a chance to cut you down again each spring, for

Apollo has declared you, a bulb, that will forever bounce back.

Hyacinth, born in early spring, your powerful aroma dances

round my morning chores. Everything is changing rapidly, as

winter snows melt, and the river flows high. Boldly, bravely, you

rise soon. You stand, a harbinger, of all that is to come and fill

our hearts. Your burst through snowy soil, always a delightful

startle, alarm awake, from winter’s dream, for the poet and the

painter. Your colors dripping blue, violet, plum, and white

impress me. Young man, your vibrant desire to please, reminds

us all to arise from our starved, winter slumber and live.

Fizzy Cup

Searching for myself

in a fizzy mixing cup

of hopes, fears, and

love.

Spring Park

He pumped his swing

a little higher

so that he

could be

beside her.

Together they flew

and then withdrew.

The clamoring creak

of chains eeheewed.

The childish

giggling bubbled

into blue.

They never thought

once of the yellow

finch, who landed on a

limb; Nor of the elder

adoze on the bench,

who snored a little

hymn.

They merely longed to keep

rhythm together, little Marcus

and lovely Heather.

Crocus

Crocus

you are a

lavender

cricket.

You lay