‘Making All Things Orderly’ and Other Poetry by Sally Cook

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Making All Things Orderly

Stare at grey clapboards in unbroken rows
That seem to follow the unceasing sound
Of thrumming traffic, with no vibrant red
Or swaying leaves to soften sunlight’s blows.

Poems of air and chlorophyll’s repose
Have gone; the smallest traces can’t be found;
Destroyed, as some fool’s sense of order fed
On massacre of hollyhock and rose.

For you and I know there are always those
Who come to slash and dig and curse the ground
Where fantasy has bloomed, and plant instead
Their awful dragon’s teeth. And I suppose

What grows from them is vigilant, and toes
Its dull unthinking line, but pound for pound
Cannot compare to one small flower bed
Of buds, rough stalks, and silken furbelows.

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Wood Sprite

In memoriam “Saints Rest”

Grace, Victorian harridan that she was,
Served out some sherry for a little buzz.
A votre santé was her toast of choice,
And I, before I’d found my style and voice,
Delighted in her dim pink walls and candles
Stuck into bottles, jardinières with handles;
Some in bronze sconces flickered, while paté
Was served; I thrilled at velvet, and the way
Her hair kept falling down, electric, red—

I can’t accept such spirit now lies dead.
As candles wane, the lovely scent retreats,
And with it, glamour, canapés. Defeats
Now strike me daily—sometimes I say “Ouch!”
Or, quoting her, go “to my downy couch,”
For all the style that I have gained since then
This laughing saint engendered in her den.

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Elegy for a Man of the Arts

for Tony Decorse

He talked too much, repeating tales twice told—
And wouldn’t leave, though welcome was long past.
Eccentric in his youth, he had grown old—
We thought that we were rid of him at last,
This man who had annoyed us all for years
Left recently, to look for better ways
To lift his spirit. Do not let your tears
Bind him in place, or dampen this new phase.

His ghost remains, a weight upon our minds.
In dreams, I’m shamed to hear our laughter still,
And every pearl I make from sand reminds
Me of that one who irritated, till
Self-serving grains of sand formed pearls for us.
Purpose fulfilled, he went without a fuss.

from TRINACRIA

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An Education

One fractured hillside, houses spilling down
Both sides, in two irregular white rows
Into the center of the little town,
Where sidewalks lined two-storied shops where we
Bought trifles, cheap perfume, a pink nightgown
For someone’s mother, shiny rayon, throws
For baby showers, made of eiderdown,
Tin toys and teddy bears. Eternity
Is filled, I think, with all the junk we bought;
The gifts for friends and teachers. Every song
Saved up till we could buy a single sheet
Of music for it, verse and words, complete,
To carol out the windows of our homes,
Much sharper and more sweet than dusty tomes.

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A former Wilbur Fellow and six-time Pushcart nominee, Sally Cook is a regular contributor to National Review, and has appeared in venues as varied as Chronicles, Lighten Up On Line, and TRINACRIA. Also a painter, her present works in the style known as Magic Realism are represented in national collections such as the N.S.D.A.R. Museum in Washington, D.C. and The Burchfield-Penney, Buffalo, NY.