Elegy Composed in the New York Botanical Garden by Eugenia Leigh

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 21, 2014   Elegy Composed in the New York Botanical Garden   Eugenia Leigh

Catmint—tubular, lavender, an ointment to blur the scar, bloom the skin. My mouth has begun the hunt for words that heal.   In the garden, I am startled by a cluster of sun-colored petals marked, Radiation. Piles of radiation. Orange radiation, huddled together   like families bound by a hospital-bright morning. And behind them: a force of yuccas called Golden Swords. A bush or mound   of sheath-like leaves sprouting from a proud center. And isn’t that the plot? First the radiation, then the golden sword.   I remember, incurably, your mother. The laughter that flowered from her lips. I’m sorry I have no good words   to honor her war. It crumbled me to watch you overwhelmed by her face in the daffodils outside your childhood home.            Copyright © 2014 by Eugenia Leigh. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “The first draft of this poem was written when a herd of Kundiman fellows was released into the New York Botanical Garden and told to gather poems. We hear often that poetry is not nonfiction—that poems are allowed to bend reality as they’re led—but what troubles me most about this poem is that I don’t remember whether the flowers outside that home were, in fact, daffodils.” —Eugenia Leigh   Eugenia Leigh is the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014). She is a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Program for Writers and lives in Chicago, Illinois. Most Recent Book by Leigh   Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014) "The Orchid Flower" by Sam Hamill "Blur" by Andrew Hudgins "Nothing to Save" by D. H. Lawrence Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038