Poetry

Johanna Freedman – Poetic Fragments

God bless this mis-happen fish;
And warn his foster brother
Not to be so wild.
Amen.

(Barbados – 1957?)

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Dormitory
sun flickers. daylight beats hard at the pane,
grinning at my sleep-drenched eyes and calling
my name in yellow tones.
the flickering sun sings to me. loudly, for i lie
deep in seaweed waves, lulled by the blue-green tides.
but i will not rise to the golden-glowing,
green-struck, bell-ringing day and turn back
into my dreams to find the naked trees
that rose like steam from a crack in the pavement
and curled around the yearning air.

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In line
A boy,
generally tall and in most ways blond,
waits just ahead of me
in line.

(God knows why or for what
we’re waiting.
We wait only because the line
seems endless and forever durable.)

He smokes damply and quickly
between his teeth,
while I, whistling through my Kleenex,
read a poem upsidedown.

And we are next to each other
and very close.

Then he disappears
into his indefinite world
leaving behind delicate ashes
dropped from the orange end
of his tremulous cigarette.

He is gone and unimportant.
But I watch the ashes die
on the idle, vinyl floor
and I am frightened

because all I will ever know
of that boy
is the uncertain memory of his form
and the dust of his ashes.

October 12, 1966

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One mark of the poet is his ability to react sensitively to a wide range of experiences. By this criterion, you are certainly a budding poet. Your lines deal with a wide variety of subject matter, but your perception is uniformly keen and compassionate.

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