I’ve been getting up and going out early in the morning with the puppy, but even at 6am it’s already 95 degrees. Trying to get a little bit of time out in the sunlight, I  pick a few weeds, water the plants, but sometimes I just sit and watch the birds and lizards run along the back wall.

When U.S. Poet  Laureate  Ada Limón visited Las Vegas at the beginning of the month  she told a story about attending a conference and an attendee had a request for the poem she would be writing and dedicating to the Europa Clipper mission for NASA, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” The woman asked her not to write nostalgically about the Earth as it was,  but to write something to help us to adapt to where the planet is now.

What do the climbing temperatures and this request mean for summer poems that we write and select?  It might mean that we are more conscious that the metaphors of a season and the events of nature are changing and we are too.

Our summer picks begin with “Freshwater Pearl Rush, 1897-1903” by Sandy Longhorn about the Lower White River State Park located in Des Arc, Arkansas. Filled with wonderful images of the search for freshwater pearls, she writes, they bent to trouble the water/and felt an ache in their bones,/ache that must have mirrored/the mussel’s shock, wrenched. 

Barbara Siegel Carlson stuns us with her attention to detail when she turns her gaze and ours  to Queen Anne’s Lace in her poem, “In a Minor Key.” Here’s a preview: each tiny petal on the wheel opens its cup to the wind,/and the green nests/of the not-yet bloomed/cling to their weave.

In “Splice,” Kate Beswith’s thirty-seven word poem engages marvelous sounds like: Cleaving, cleaving —/frog-footed,/breathing, breathing; as she explores what it is to be spliced. This is a wonderful small poem.

Reminiscent of Mary Oliver’s words, “Attention is the beginning of devotion,” Danel Rortvedt’s reveals in “Attention,” I contemplate the same rose bush. Each spring/we plant the garden. Come autumn,/pumpkin roots overrun the lawn. I don’t want to spoil it, but the ending is outstanding!

Our final pick is “A Salt Pact” by Julie Esther Fisher. Set on the water, in this brief  poem Fisher deals with the complexity of family and memory. She writes: overboard, made us/kiss the sea/a pledge of loyalty to our father. 

Angela M. Brommel
Editor-in-Chief / Poetry Editor
The Citron Review