Late Night with a Seasoned Poet

By on Sep 24, 2010 in Poetry

Center of red rose

after reading Mary Oliver

I cannot reach you
  at five a.m. when you spring
   awake to watch a summer rose

fall into a pink-petaled
  lake where fishes bloom.
    I’m not a morning

person unless a winter
  less night yawns & stretches
    into dawn with jarring songs

of owls & whippoorwills
  and the charming squeak of
    a bat. Outlined at dusk,

its soaring silhouette
  intersects the evening
    sky, circling insects

and other small mysteries
  revealed to me before the
    pink-pollen light recedes.

                                And then,
                                 everywhere,
                              everywhere,

black roses blossom: hybrids
   cultivated from a long, wild
growing season of the night.

Heat Wave Contents

About

Mary Harwell Sayler began writing poems as a child but as an adult wrote almost everything except poetry. Her published works range from a children’s picture book to a devotional series to two life-health encyclopedias, but eventually journals, anthologies, and e-zines accepted a couple hundred of her poems. She also tries really hard to help other poets and writers through her critiques (yes, the kind you have to pay for), blogs (free), and The Poetry Editor website.