Green Shaded Lamps

By Cornelia Veenendaal

Book by Cornelia Veenendaal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Release date: Sep 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781949944204

Book preview

1

Green Shaded Lamps

BALLOONING

Is this all, these memories,

numerous as the genes that made me,

lighter than morning air?

My mother

in the front seat of the Nash;

in the sunroom overgrown with ivy,

her voice asking for an ice pack.

I outside crying

let me come in!

The wind

is blowing snow

in my eyes!

Soon there are six of us

riding home from grandmother’s

each one sucking a horehound candy

watching lights come on in the valley.

I at my father’s desk

reading by his green shaded lamp

smelling the graphite

of newly sharpened pencils.

A balloon is coming along the fresh grass;

it has been inflated with lighter than morning air;

now it’s off the ground, ascending

over rooftops and trees, following the