Leaves flicker, black on the kitchen wall
bright with sun. I sit at the table, morning
coffee still warm, absorb images, red and tan
from The Cave of Lascaux: the aurochs, ibex,
the upside-down horse lunge toward me.
Yesterday, high on Mount Greylock,
the white pines stiff with ice, I could see
for sixty miles, cirrus clouds drifted,
reminding me of the long view
from Sutton Bank, the chalk white horse
cut into the hillside, near my hometown.
I forget that everything changes.
Now that the doctor has given you
a few more days. Outside in the dark
I consider the stars exploding
to seed planets like ours. I know some
are already gone, but here
how brightly their light still shines.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 5.
Patricia Hemminger’s poems have appeared in journals and magazines including most recently, Streetlight Magazine, Humana Obscura, The Write Launch, and SLANT, and in her chapbooks What Do We Know of Time? and All Things Gone. She holds a PhD in chemistry and is a graduate of NYU’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program and of Drew University’s MFA Poetry Program. She is currently the producer of a documentary focused on green chemistry solutions to environmental pollution.
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