.

Hybrid and Wild

All of her life had a meaning,
Each section in its compartment.
Tenants went through a close screening—
Somehow, I got the apartment.

She was a prickly old lady—
I, a rambling young upstart who
Took care she sat where it’s shady
And watched as her prize roses grew.

I thought her narrow and rigid,
Rooted, ultra-conventional;
Close-minded, humorless, frigid.
My errors, unintentional,

Caused her to think me quite shocking,
Lazing about in my bathrobe,
Going out in a ripped stocking,
Not worried over each microbe.

I, changing ways with the weather,
Exacerbated her ire.
Still, we grew tangled together:
Hybrid variety, briar.

.

.

Seasons

Summer, a child well masked with makeup
Soon assaults us with her noise:
A sudden screaming, screeching wakeup.
And even shy ones, lacking poise,
Missing Spring’s beginning greening
Shoots of possibility,
End by caterwauling, keening
In the shining scenery.

.

.

Gratitude

That hoary toad must be one hundred now,
In long toad years, spent in the reeds around
The ancient house and barn, all in a row
Upon a hill. Aware of every sound,
His toad ears listen as his toad eyes glow.
I know that he recalls how he was found
Within a watering can, deep down below
The distance he could jump. He made no sound
Through the long nights and blazing days, so slow;
Interminable for the toad, small leather mound.
Sensing his presence I was quick to go
And pluck him out and place him on soft ground.
Few can record they heard a faint toad voice
Rise up, yet I have heard a toad rejoice.

.

.

Sally Cook is both a poet and a painter of magical realism. Her poems have also appeared in Blue Unicorn, First Things, Chronicles, The Formalist Portal, Light Quarterly, National Review, Pennsylvania Review, TRINACRIA, and other electronic and print journals. A six-time nominee for a Pushcart award, in 2007 Cook was featured poet in The Raintown Review. She has received several awards from the World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets, and her Best American Poetry Challenge-winning poem “As the Underworld Turns” was published in Pool. 

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19 Responses

  1. Paddy Raghunathan

    Sally,

    And like that toad of yours, I rejoice.

    Thank you for these lovely poems,

    Paddy

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Thank you, Paddy, for enjoying my poems, and. for understanding that even a resourceful toad with small thoughts and dim feelings can use a bit of help from time to time..

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I understand how personalities can eventually accept one another and become a “hybrid.” “Shoots of possibility” is such a beautiful thought and phrase. I have a friend in my current hometown who nicknamed a toad that came to stay in her garden, “Pavarotti.” I love your down to earth classical poetry.

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Roy, you have a sense of reality few have today, or care to have. Reality is fast disappearing; soon we will not longer be able to tell the difference between what is real and what we are told we are told we are supposed to believe.

      Once that happens — look out1 Stay sane, my friend, and keep on believing in toads.

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    I always notice what a deft hand Sally Cook has with rhymes. Most are perfect, but when she plays with some words (“bathrobe” and “microbe”, and “now” and “row”) she can make a slight near rhyme work to perfection. Because she never overuses near rhyme, we accept it within the flow of her narrative.

    About “Hybrid and Wild” — Cook has tendency to imagine human relationships in the imagery of flowers and plants. The juxtaposition of prize roses with a briar is very much in her style.

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Dear Joe —
      Every time you address some aspect of my poems I learn more about some aspect of my work. Thanks so much for your kindness in doing that.

      Reply
  4. Sally Cook

    Roy, you have a sense of reality few have today, or care to have. Reality is fast disappearing; soon we will not longer be able to tell the difference between what is real and what we are told we are told we are supposed to believe.

    Once that happens — look out1 Stay sane, my friend, and keep on believing in toads.

    Reply
  5. Mary Gardner

    Sally, how perfectly you capture the vignette of the rescued toad!
    Technical question: Is the volta in line 6, 11, or 13? Or does the poem have more than one?

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Mary,

      Thank you for your kind words ! Toads are strange creatures indeed ! Still, they are worthy of some respect I would think more than one volta – that, would be voltae, would it not?

      Reply
      • Mary Gardner

        Toads are sweet creatures. I wish Milton had not had Satan assume the form of a toad in “Paradise Lost.”

  6. Paul A. Freeman

    A toad whisperer and an amphibian’s friend. Loved it.

    I especially enjoyed your Hybrid and Wild poem. The characterisations are profound and thought-provoking.

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Paul, thanks for your comments, You don’t miss much, do you? The level of intelligent response on this site is so high it amazes me !

      Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Dear JD –
      -And isn’t that what poetry should be? I think of some of Shakespeare’s icicles hanging on the wall, and especially greasy Joan hard at work on her pots. Charm, like crystal, is easily shattered. Even more than charm he knew how to capture a moment in time.

      That is what I strive for. And you know how to recognize those moments. Knowing forms is one necessary thing; to write of the essence of life is another that is even more necessary. You know this. That is what makes you a poet and also what makes you an excellent critic. I thank you for noticing my work.

      Reply
  8. Yael

    Sally I love your garden variety poems. Even though you are dealing with ordinary subjects close to home, the stories you tell are fun, refreshing, unique and unpredictable. I enjoy how the structure of your rhymes contributes to the nuances of your story, like the sentence in Hybrid and Wild which begins in the last line of the third stanza and finishes in the fourth stanza, and looks like a graphic illustration of the unintentional errors you are describing.

    Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    I like “Gratitoad” with only three rhyme sounds, and a fade-out into the faint toad voice noticed just by you, Sally. We have rescued baby squirrels who chattered all the way home.

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Margaret, I knew that you would recognize the worth of helping a creature.
      Thank you.

      Reply
  10. Julian D. Woodruff

    Thanks for these, Sally. I especially appreciate your account of the rescue of the toad. When a few years ago I had to remove a bat from my apartment, it must have been more traumatic for the bat (being temporarily trapped beneath a saucepan) than rescue was for the toad. The bat flew off as soon as I released it–no smile. So in my poem about the incident I had to invent a substitute to represent the critter’s relief.

    Reply
    • Sally Cook

      Dear Julian –
      Glad to know others such as you are also rescuing creatures and also enjoying each others poetry as well ! Thanks for stopping by – Toad says hello.

      Reply

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