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Reflections by Karen Devaney
Poetry informs all genres I write in. If you can distill a story into a poem, you can write anything. Here are but a few of the many I've written and published.
Soldier Boy
She sat beneath the tree, waiting and rocking.
The whistling of a nearby bird caused a dog to bark.
The dog beneath her feet was years beyond his youth.
A power pole stood tall in the day’s dimming light.
Sacrificial wires, twisting round the wood.
She rocked a tweed chair with ebony iron legs, forward and back.
The world came close then moved away.
She stared at the holes between the tree’s green leaves.
Her right hand swaddled her belly, her left hand hung at her side.
She rocked trying to lure thoughts into hibernation.
Memories appeared then slid back into shadows.
His voice hummed inside of her, she listened and rocked.
The sky to the west turned a purplish gray.
The ancient walnut tree slumped from summer’s thick heat.
She wished its dead branches would collapse and fall.
Two screeching blue jays interrupted her rocking.
Her thoughts once again strayed to yesterday’s call.
“Your son died a hero...”
“There’s a mistake, I’m sure. My son’s coming home in two weeks.”
“I’m so sorry Ma’am, so sorry indeed.”
The Edges of His Face
Tracing the jaw and cheek line
With my fingers, the flesh
No longer taunt to the bone
But there in the edges of his face
Are stories of his life, the scar
On the left side of his chin when
He fell off a skateboard careening
Down a hill unabandoned
Youth.
I Loved to Watch Them Dance
In the kitchen before they discovered my gaze
I saw my father spin my mother
under his arm.
Their feet slapping the dingy linoleum
moving to a jitterbug tune
like the days before kids.
Lost in the movement igniting the spark
I loved to watch them dance.
I saw my father spin my mother
into his arms then out again
A human yoyo
Swaying, turning, their bodies close and apart
above the struggles they
were desperate to escape.
I loved to watch them dance.
Into his arms then out again
My mother’s black hair brushing his face.
With each twirl she let go for a second.
Closed her eyes and gave in.
Their movements a journey back to the beginning.
Jive two three, hands together grasping.
I loved to watch them dance.
My mother’s black hair brushing his face
giving her the sole attention, she craved
she imagined the others more beautiful
out in the streets away from their dance floor
Her trust soared with the fast, upbeat melody
Their affection bopped with beats and tempos
I loved to watch them dance.
Giving her the sole attention, she craved
until the radio went to a break
and the pan on the stove boiled
the meat in the oven almost burnt
She’d put her apron back on and he’d promise
To be home more
And for a few lingering moments they let each other believe.
I loved to watch them dance.
ELEGY to BETHLEHEM STEELE
Fractured, ghostlike shutters flap against withering bricks
Old walls long widowed, mourning for the clatter of men
their windowpanes cracked.
Shattered remnants of steel workers pierce the now empty
factory where millions toiled for the American Dream.
Plumes of steam extinguished condemning
the once proud steel to an unkempt graveyard
aching arthritic memories of people wondering
Where was the harbinger?
Generations of sons, fathers and old men
lay still in the eerie quiet.
Home now to pigeons and rodents
Bethlehem Steel, the name reverberates
still commanding a hats off to
those who toiled for its grandeur.