Sorina Higgins
GARDEN COURTSHIP
(with thanks to Edna St. Vincent Millay for the first line)
Mindful of you, the sodden earth in spring
seems heavy while I wonder who we are.
The damp clods stick and stain my hands
grubbing among muddy roots for fear
of looking up and finding you have gone
away with some small part of me without
exchange. What is that light from your eyes
doing inside my body? Looking down,
I see our four feet on one plot of earth,
our twenty fingers in one lily bed
sometimes touching as they move the leaves,
our two mouths shaping silently one word.
You reap sweet summer fistfuls, loud with scent,
lascivious of hue, and thrust them in my sight.
GIGANTIC
A thin path dwindled long and dim
through rows of waking trees almost too green
with inner growing light and Springtime’s outside light
to be just ordinary trees.
They all strove upward, pine trees reaching
through the beeches, birches, and bare maple trees,
tip-topping at perspective’s point
where unencumbered sunbeams meet.
A fly explored my fingernail with slim
Proboscis, tiny rainbows tinting every
puzzle piece of his segmented wings—
transparent golden wings. A fairy fantasy,
until I went crushing twigs and leaves
with much enormous noise from my huge human feet.
PERFECT!
The carrots have a bright rhythm
and the thin slices of chicken
a smooth meaning
as they lie even on the counter.
Into the pot!
Colors and scents changing under the spoon.
I make the culinary music
as I swing from stove-top to
table-top, cupboard to fridge.
At least some part of life
has an instruction manual!
– my compliments to the cookbook.
Now, from the oven,
tantalizing and aesthetic:
that’s the way to make a meal.
At least there is some part of life
that I can hold, turn,
and bring out beautiful.
Sorina Higgins
Sorina Higgins lives near Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she teaches literature, writing, music, and The Inklings to homeschoolers. In summers, she pursues an M.A. from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in Alive Now, Studio, Perspectives, Windhover, Bible & Spade, and idiom.
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