Introduction by
Ted Kooser: Do others of you think about what you'll miss when you leave
this life? For me it will be the great skies over my part of the world. Here’s
Emily Grosholz’s take on this, from her new book The Stars of Earth:
New and Selected Poems, from Word Galaxy Press. She lives and teaches in
Pennsylvania.
Here and There
What will I miss
when I'm gone?
The squeak of the
wheelbarrow's wheel,
Grace note that
strikes with every slow
Revolution, and
then the hushed, rusty
Answer in triplets
from the invisible
Bird in the
lackluster maples.
Branches, weeds,
last autumn’s leavings
Raked from the
moss-eaten pads, beds,
Borders, still
untrimmed hedges.
Also the silent
pale blue bells
Of my half dozen
borage, ringed,
Self-seeded from
the woods.
Daylilies my
mother liked to set
Roadside in June.
Pale Greek anemones
She never traveled
far enough
To find wild, as I
did once or twice, but
Maybe I'll bring
her some, if over there
Windflowers blow
beside a cloudy sea.
American Life in
Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org),
publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of
English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2017 by Emily Grosholz,
“Here and There (from “June”), from The Stars of Earth: New and Selected
Poems, (Word Galaxy Press, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Emily
Grosholz and the publisher. Introduction copyright©2018 by The Poetry
Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet
Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do
not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
