In Chile – by Wendy Morton

Here’s another poem, like a fragrant offering, sent along by Wendy Morton.

Wendy-in Chile

IN CHILE

the miners rise into the light
and the world weeps in precise jubilation.
Here, the copper bird I bought last summer
is indifferent: the rainbow chard and beets
swirl around her.
Jubilant, I watch this fall garden:
the nasturtiums I never planted
trail past the Drunken Woman lettuce,
tangle into the filigreed collards.
Nearby, the fall rye has turned
into a green sea.

Death, precise and insistent,
is never far away.
The zucchini and bush beans have begun to die
as the light tunnels
toward the rising dark

7 Comments

  1. Wonderful imagery – the juxtaposition of resurrection of people, and death in the realm of nature.

  2. What a beautiful poem. The miners rising, the garden, the chaos, all of it in Wendy’s eloquence.
    Thanks for supporting poetry, Stephen.

  3. Wendy Morton has shown us the fragility of life, the proximity of death through the
    metaphor of her garden- that wild, jubilation of survival, the constant ebb and flow
    of existence. The reader experiences the joy of the miners- their return to light!

  4. Superb justapositions of insistent life and immovable death, only this time at a great distance and in the poet’s own backyard. As always with this iconic Canadian artist, the contrast comes with a subtle shock, a provocative frisson, and finally recognition and acceptance. By all means keep publishing this extraordinary talent; she’s one in many millions.

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