Poetry

At the Cusp of Midnight: A New Year’s Poem

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta
On December 31, 2022, I imagined myself teetering on the second hand of the clock, counting down to the next installment in our lives. In that last second, between years, what do we see or know of the past or the future? That was the seed of my new year’s poem for 2023.
I stand at the cusp of midnight.
To my left, yesterday, and all that’s gone.
To my right, tomorrow, the quantum future.
I stand in an empty space.
No now or here or where.
In this vacant moment, in this cusp,
Between what was and what could be,
I am an amalgam of everyone I’ve loved.
Filled to the brim with lives
Fully lived, fully lost.
I yearn toward the memories.
Smiles and walks and the weaving of tales.
A new us with every adventure, and arguments, too.
Yet always returning to our true north,
To our home, to us.
Midnight will come and disappear
When I must be more than a mirror of memories.
Here, in this moment of potentials,
Before the seconds break this silence,
I am a tabula rasa, a tale untold.
The seconds spill from this place.
Midnight turns, a year unfurls to my right.
I can’t know what it will bring, only what is gone.
In my core, a molten, enduring amalgam,
As I prepare to embrace what might be.
~Sally Wiener Grotta, December 31, 2022

The Measure of Time (a poem)

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta
Every year, I become intrigued by the concept of a “new” year, of a calendar that we as humans have imposed on nature, on the ongoing circling of planets and stars. Where is the beginning and end in a circle?

Questions are the source of just about all my writing. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that that it has become a tradition for me to write a new year’s poem. Here’s this year’s:
A minute, an hour, a day.
What is the measure of time?
A child dances with sunlight
A pas de deux that seems to last forever.
An old woman reaches back to first love, Read More

Berry Picking – a poem

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta

Winter Memories of Strawberries by Sally Wiener Grotta Here’s another poem memory inspired by Ellen Kushner’s  Facebook posting of “Picking Blueberries” by Margaret Atwood.

Then again, what is memory other than the mythology we’ve created about who we are, who we were, and why we have become the person we are today and may be tomorrow? I wonder how my sister remembers this day, if she remembers it at all, if it ever happened.

Grey clouds heavy with snow
Hover close to the earth,
Extinguishing the sun.
Yet the air is sweet and crisp,
Fertile with sensations
Of the ever-present now
And memories of never again.Read More

My Mother’s Hands

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta

Poem - My Mother's Hands by Sally Wiener Grotta

 

I return over and over again to hands, to touch, to the beginning of story which is also a type of touch my mother taught me. But in a time when loving means not touching, regardless of how much we ache for and need our loved ones’ touch, remembering my mother’s hands fills an emptiness that memory also creates.

A few days ago, the author Ellen Kushner posted  a poem on Facebook, “Blackberries” by Margaret Atwood. In response, I wrote “I look at my hands and see my mother’s touch.” I knew it was the beginning of a poem, of such intimate memories that I wasn’t quite ready to sit down and let it flow through me. Some memories can’t be allowed to blossom until the heart is soft enough to not fear the pain and the beauty of lost loves, past moments that can never again be reclaimed. Then, this morning, I looked in the mirror, held my hands to my face, and I knew I had the strength once more to be soft. 

As the Gates Begin to Close

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta

As the sun sets on Yom Kippur — a day set aside for reflection, to evaluate our past deeds and failures, to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged, and to rededicate ourselves to a better future — I’ve decided to share this poem that evolved out of my meditations this morning.

On this day of awe,
when I turn my mind
to the blessings of my life,
and to my failure to treasure,
to honor and nurture them,
when I count my sins
of omission,
of commission,
of blindness
to what must be done,
what should be done,

Read More

Thank you Toni Morrison… and Trapeta B. Mayson

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta
Trapeta B. Mayson, Philadelphia's Poet Laureate, speaking about Toni Morrison at The Rosenbach
Trapeta B. Mayson
This past Tuesday, I attended my first Rosenbach lunchtime talk. The Rosenbach museum and library is one of Pennsylvania’s hidden treasures, though it is open to the public and is now affiliated with the Free Library of Philadelphia. The elegant Delancey Street double townhouse contains a remarkable collection of rare books and documents originally assembled by the Rosenbach brothers, famous dealers in books, manuscripts and art. It’s also the site of frequent public discussions, readings and lectures that fill the intimate rooms with interested and interesting people from near and far – such as the monthly lunchtime talks. I didn’t know what to expect, except that the topic was one of my favorite authors – Toni Morrison – and the speaker would be Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson. I was sure that it would be a hour well spent. Besides, I needed to get away from my writing for a bit. I’d been struggling with the first draft of my new novel’s second chapter, and the more I fought the words – the more I wrote, edited and deleted – the more frustrated (and, yes, self-doubting) I was becoming. Perhaps, I had finally bitten off more than I could chew with this ambitious project. "I never asked Tolstoy to write for me." Toni Morrison Throughout the hour, Trapeta interspersed Morrison quotes and her own poems, a weave of words and ideas that illuminated the ideas she shared, until they shimmered with energy and life that could not be denied. She spokeRead More

The Feminine Line

Posted on by Sally Wiener Grotta

"Sisters and Mothers" a poem by Sally Wiener Grotta

I was searching through my files this morning for a some notes from a trip I once took to Sable Island, a tiny spit of land in the North Atlantic. As I shuffled file folders and piles of papers, I found this poem, which I wrote at a time of personal upheaval.

I remember picking up my pen, to try to understand the difficulties I was encountering; writing is how I deal with crises or confusion. And on that day — February 18, 2014 — I found deep within me the voices (and hopefully the strength) of all the women who came before me. They are still there, in my mind and my spirit, in my words and my art, a gift of love and continuity.