Two Poems

Migrant Mother

I stopped to stoop,
And stooped to chop,
Then clipped to scoop
The lettuce crop.

In the rain tent 
Long after dark . . . 
My mother bent
Like a question mark. 

 

Unstill Life
Georgia O’Keeffe
American artist
1887-1986

Observer of the shifting shape,
Botanical and desertscape,

I and my orchids might have meant
To call to mind a continent

Of love. The space of Western skies 
Is fixed in the longhorn’s empty eyes. 

Romantic vistas hum out loud
Beneath the mesa’s patterned cloud. 

I gave bleached bones and ancient skulls 
More life than living animals

That haunt the still and soft light show 
Of my beloved New Mexico.

What is it if it is not art
That turns the handle of the heart?

—J. Patrick Lewis, Westerville, OH

 

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