Month: January 2017

I‘m fortunate to have old friends, who have known me through the different stages of my life. I examine one of those cherished friendships in a poem entitled “The Lakeside Diner” which appears in January 2017 issue of Poetry Breakfast.   Check it out at:http://poetrybreakfast.com or read it below:

The Lakeside Diner

The LakeSide Diner, homemade donuts, no lake,
just a pond, slick and thick as the Navy Bean soup
offered as a lunch special with a half grilled cheese on the side.

We greet each other in the parking lot, admire the October
foliage just turning yellow like an old wedding dress,
a few fallen leaves slippery under our sensible shoes.

We take a seat by the window, two old and good friends
meeting in a strange town, equidistant from our current homes,
hungry for news and reassurance that the other still
breathes and lives and reads, but not as much as she used to.

Once, decades past, we watched our little boys
placing gumdrops on the roof of a gingerbread house,
racing toy trucks to the sofa, while we, then as now, and for years in between,
talked about sacred and quiet things.

Today we order scrambled eggs, no butter, tea,
each weighing private matters of digestion,
trying not to stare too long at the other’s face growing wiser by the minutes,
preferring at times to look out at the mallards gliding along
the surface of the scummy water
carrying on as if there will be no water, no ice, no need to fly south.

,

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Poetry Breakfast.com is a marvelous site which delivers  a daily poem, like a fresh croissant. (Or a scone, or a blueberry muffin, depending). My poem "Tethered" appeared in the January 6, 2017 edition.

Check it out here: https://poetrybreakfast.com/2017/01/06/tethered-a-poem-by-gabriella-brand/

or read it below:

Tethered

The grand-babies appeared among us, delivered on the doorstep,
wrinkled like little rutabagas.
They were new, untouched, plucked fresh from the garden, or wherever they come from, babies. No one knows.

They showed up just as I was thinking about my own departure,
Not that I’m ready to leave, but let’s face it, the earth, sometime soon, will call me home.

That’s how it is. Someone always arriving, someone always heading off.

Seven decades, moving towards eight, I am.
Getting a bit crusty around the edges, like stale bread, that’s what old folks are.
But the babies are wet and soft, like the flesh of summer plums.
They drip and drool and taste delicious.

I hold them tight, gumming them with kisses,
rocking them with cradle songs from the old country,
the ones my Nonna sang to me.

And I can feel time
like a feather, tickling my heart.