Poems by Erika Simone
Writer/Poet: Erika Simone
Spring has ascended
from its annual resting place
as indicated by
popping bluebonnets
and plants leaning
into sunlight:
east then west
and up uP UP;
they close at nightfall,
roots expanding below
ground to soak up
sporadic showers
and the nitrogen
they call upon
for their own survival;
awaken at dawn, beside
sprouting hints of
verdant buds of
what-have-you.
The tackling of unwanted growth,
the labor, the struggle, gratifying:
snip prune groom bloom;
you lay down rocks for landscaping limits,
watching the movement of
orange-breasted robins laying eggs
high in the hovering pine tree
who fly down, then up, to feed.
bushy-tailed rodents gather to consume what
other birds’ feeding has dispersed
on the ground below the hanging feeder,
and run away, bellies satisfied;
one tries (unsuccessfully)
to defeat the garden barrier
to consume vines of
squash and melon,
and, foiled, jumps
kamikaze
from the top of the fence
to the next yard’s tree.
. . .
Three doors down,
sun is rising:
fresh adolescent hearts
break
to the sounds of
digital alarm clock beeps.
Sun sets,
and they
joke around like
ruffians from 1979,
fall off skateboards
at high speeds,
laugh off their injuries;
do it again the next day:
ride, fall,
break, laugh.
. . .
Next door, contractors work
into the evening
cleaning pool filters
and preparing decks for sun;
the sound of hammers
to nails
to wood
echoes down the block:
one, two, three,
twenty,
two hundred:
("Father, why
have you
forsaken
me?”)
But oh,
"Daddy,
daddy,
you
bastard,
I'm through.” 1
Removed, you listen,
conflicted by your
hammer’s
own song:
one, two, three,
thirty-three,
two hundred.
sun becomes hostile, browns
exposed skin and leaftips.
makeshift overhead sunshades
are put in place,
no wind to
fell their fragile frames.
late 90s Billboard hits
blast through cheap speakers,
and through fence;
you think,
“unfortunate taste.”
you think,
“why did they complain
about previous neighbors?”
and you think,
“well, tit for tat."
. . .
Still,
best neighborhood
as far as
neighborhoods go
and it’s yours,
your place in the sun;
your roots,
temporarily pinched,
now grasp through
layers of loam
for down-deep things
that will nourish in you
a blooming peace of mind:
reaching
east
then
west,
amidst this
popping,
growing,
consuming,
breaking,
laughing,
cleaning,
building,
browning,
blasting,
all of which
close up by nightfall and
awaken again
at dawn.
1) Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." The Collected Poems. New York: Harper & Row, 1981. N. pag. Print.
© erika simone 2014