2025 Poetry Contest
The Sweet Life

Summer days, she follows him there. They become like the creek they are going to. As soon as they crawl under the barbed wire onto Fogarty’s field, they run down the hill the way a dog goes after a stick. Make waves in the corduroy rows of alfalfa. Lose control of legs and arms. Cough and laugh from running so hard. The plants snap back against bare calves, shushing reprimands. From the bottom of the hill, when she looks behind her, the town has disappeared. All she sees is the field rising. Ahead of them are the shiny railroad tracks parallel to the alfalfa rows behind. Tar-soaked wooden beams support the rails on landscape rock above a sturdy raised earthen bed. And beyond the tracks is wetland brush and wildgrasses edged by the chaotic outline of trees against the sun. Jagged gashes and hanging limbs from long ago storms. Closer in, intertwined myriad greens weave a roof of leaves above wet dark ground. Finally, they come to a squiggly crease where the shiny rocks and slimy things reside. He leaves her hovering over a gurgle of water. Granite pieces, bits of quartz, one small orange puckered stone shine in the flickering light. A black oval of basalt is velvet under water. Hypnotized by burbling, moving water, she has no idea how long she looks for treasure. A silvery leech on the back of her leg puts a stop to the spell. She is young enough to scream without embarrassment. He appears and pries the leech off her leg. Without a word they turn to leave. On the way up the hill the rocks in her hands quickly dry into ordinary things. Black velvet becomes dull gray. The quartz she keeps for several summers inside her dresser drawer. The sound of the water she keeps with her always, and the knowledge that there are no ordinary things.

Morels and fiddlehead ferns bathe in broth seasoned with thyme. Garnished with parmesan curls, the bronzed fungi and jade coils caress soft shallots. I lick my lips, probe the mushroom’s scalloped tips with my tongue, savoring the scent of rain-washed dirt. This cousin of truffles lies hidden beneath elms and ash stumps in woodlands where hunters forage, avoiding Gyromitra, its toxic twin. Tonight I toast you on your birthday. Tonight I cherish you, my beloved, and tonight, I remember my father, returning to the timber each May; rucksack in hand, gathering morels for my mother to sauté in brown butter, in that time before the trees were cleared, before the land was burned, before his treasure vanished.

Amidst a flock of farmers’ fields In stand of trees Of birch and pine And other kinds— An undetermined life began. Raised up by dirtied feet and hands And crawfish hid in river sands When scales were in the balance and Each shift in weight Could change the fate Of ten years down the road, My father pushed me on a swing Hung from a mighty oak. The tree was wide, and branches lolled Just low enough to climb, But one was much too high and so, The tire swing that watched me grow Took root above the ground. I’d soar above the world And time would cease until I swept, From up on high to lower heights— I’d wait, then fly again. The summers came and came again, Yet just as surely, summers left, And each one wore without regret Upon the woven rope until It fell. As the swing had lost its rooting In time, I did as well. Nine years had walked away When next I came to see the tree. Although it seemed to me to be The same as when I saw it last, I could not seem to find the place That knew me in the past.

diana ross is doing what i can’t this morning— rising the record spins growth and glitter, while i sit dog-snores into stillness, her boston terrier weight, a soft refusal to move the cat (raised by weather) balances behind my head, a crown of ambivalence coffee cools next to a pile of library books i continuously renewed validating books on grief my brain says no thank you not today— to meaning, to improvement but here we are alive, static a little holy not reaching, just held

For the love of God, let me toil with my hands till the day I die. Scraping away the place where my stubborn will sticks to my spirit. To suck the marrow from hardship, Lick the salt off of pain, And kiss life full on the mouth just because I have a taste for bitter things. Make the mundane thick, syrupy, and sweet. My mind will wane, but my body will keep count of where we have been. Thriving out of determination and delight, but the greatest of these is spite. Brushing fingertips with every version of my life I could have, every person I could love, each place I could be grounded in. Make me an ancestor today so I can embody the experience and pass on the knowledge. This is about roots. This is about dirt. This is about home. It’s not enough to simply exist, let me live so stupid hard that in each moment I can think,“this is going to hurt so much to look back on.”

“I shall get well! And I shall live forever and ever and ever!” -The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett One of the strange (and sweet) things about living is that only now and then, I really deeply and truly believe that I shall live forever. I believe it in the early morning when the day is young and new, when the pale sky is flushing and changing and when my heart stops at the grandeur of the rising sun. I believe it on a foggy, rainy day, when each raindrop feels like the freshest refreshment, lifting veils and veils of fog and my spirits with it. I believe it in a wood alone at dusk when a mysterious deep goldness slips through and under branches, triggering utter awe within me. I believe it in the stretching silence of a dark night, whose twinkling stars sprinkled against the navy sky creates in me a piece of music, the song of serenity. I believe it when I reach the end of a good story whose interior world completely satisfies me and leaves me feeling alive. Now and then, in this ordinary life, I see the sweet things in it and find the ways they point to everlasting life.

Windows cracked open. Waking to chickadee songs and whispers of spring. Linen curtains sway. Crisp morning breeze seeping in to play with my hair. Ribbons of sunlight chasing away the shadows, painting the walls gold. Bare feet breaking free from a patchy floral quilt. The porch swing awaits. Sweet coffee in hand. Gently gliding back and forth into a new day.

I climbed the stairs, there must have been thirty of them. The reward was only allotted to the “bravest of the brave.” That’s what the one arm man had said the year before. “Come up here, show me your Halloween costume, if you’re brave.” The one arm man lived on the third floor of the house. There were only outside stairs going up to his attic apartment. If it was snowing, it could be slippery on the iron stairs. And he was old and had one arm. Spooky, until Mother explained. Explained he’d been “in the war.” He’d been brave. “I am brave,” I said to myself. My cousin was chicken. A real hen. Chicken all the way through. He said, “That’s a lotta stairs.” He was Trick-or-Treating only for candy. I was made of tougher stuff. The one arm man paid a coin, a quarter (25 cents) per trip. “Come up here, show me your Halloween costume, if you’re brave.” The first time, it was about the 25 cents. After that, it was because the one arm man was my friend. But I still took the 25 cents. After all, I was brave. “Happy Halloween!” To all the one-armed men.