Three Poems by Jean C. Howard

HANDING OF THE FLAG

(Services of William Reese)

At the grave site,

as each star is swallowed

by a fold

or white-glove tuck,

the flag moves,

slowly, precisely,

each tug calculated

and rehearsed.

The gatherers are silent,

hearing each move,

though inaudible.

The only sound lifting

above us is a baby

whose lips begin suckling

in his mother’s arms.

The sound, so visceral,

so intense, its primal longing

moving him closer

to his mother’s breast,

is drifting upward

above the flag

as it slowly, steadily,

crawls toward its end.

The crisp finality

of its pointed blue

floats within

the widow’s arms

as the mother steps away,

the infant clamping beneath

her shawl onto the nearest

nipple.

GARDEN BEFORE THE MOVE

Like an old movie,

sepia tone soaking through light

falling frame by frame,

slow death rattling across

the pavers,

Or even flashing birth—forecasting shadow

as well as brightness,

Old garden,

clicking and anxious,

cicada-filled, scratchy

with dusk

and gangly June,

spreading beyond your marks,

I get it,

still spellbound by bold

displays and clapping

hands of cottonwoods,

Yet sense a difference—the bloating at seams

and pause, tinted

by Russian olive,

And the movie—much bluer and beautiful,

resonates with irony,

now that I must leave it.

TILTING BRONZE

Lone tree tilting bronze

with late summer,

you ache with age and lost

limbs.

Dawn jogs by,
yet dusk drags itself
slowly, until darkness

crawls onto your leaves;

Still, you cry out

to the heavens.
Your arms fly up,
frantic with wind.

Tall tree, grasping sky
with gnarled fingers,

clawing at last strands

of light,

Lay your head
onto night’s just-washed pillow.

Let moon drizzle silver onto dreams.

Breathe the wild chartreuse
of saplings sparking
with sprouts still undimmed,
untorn, untouched
by winter.

Know in your sleep
the fresh pink of young April,
even as your first leaf loosens
to drop.

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