Gathering the Pieces

Carol Lem
About the Author

Robert Lawson "Carol Lem's poety is not what it appears to be. The ordinary things she quietly places before you---a bracelet, bamboo flute, and tattered journal---and the lost things ---a plum tree and child on a swing, movie extras and the dearly departed---are startled awake, catch their breath, aflame with memory and words."
Suzanne Lummis:"There's something wondrous about this collection. In an age that's produced relatively few love poems, each of Carol Lem's poems seems to rise from love---of friends, teachers, the art of teaching, the art of learning, and music, the bamboo flute, the notes, the silence between them, the hush at the end....imbued with a tenderness...."

Christopher Buckley: "The poems....are remarkable for their quiet insight
and humility, for their keen attention to and transformation
of the small details of a life...."

Gathering the Pieces

You open the book of names.
The eye scales each column
until it reaches across Midwestern plains
to another friend who might know
the words you are gathering at 73.
Finally, heart and mouth are one.
You tell me that friends
must not grow apart
the way children do or a husband
who finds his work.
Now you've found yours and tell me,
"Life is sweet."

So you come to me
for envelopes and stamps,
a strong stapler, as you
gather the pieces of your book
like familiar streets where a sister
or brother waits at each corner
to lead you away. And still
after years of renaming this earth
you ask who it is, this ghost
who took you from "the work,"
gave you two sons, one death.

And what about the Pacific Coast
where you can drink wine
with Li Po and Buber?
They'll always sing "strong roots
drink the same water."

Tell me, friend,
where do we send these messages
now that trees have all been pruned?

Tell me, friend,
dressed in the nightgown of pain,
what it means to lose
and get it back again?

Become the air
on a soft afternoon
so I can breathe again.
To Sarah Rose

Greenhouse Review Press
Ordering Information
Peddler Press
809 Skyland Drive
Sierra Madre, CA 91024
$15.00
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