![]() J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Social Justice Poetry, Tuck Magazine, Yellow Chair Review, Synchronized Chaos, and Haikuniverse. Jerry D. Birth Day Birthdays changed the year my mother Sent a card, then called A month too soon. She sounded betrayed, somehow, When I finally said, But mom, it's in August. After a pause she said, What are you saying? I, if anyone, should know When my children were born. A fear, new to her, a fear We'd all get to know so well, Had settled to the bottom of her voice. The Burren (Co. Galway) Out here they wait for Godot, Pass time as best they can, Blend to this background of gray The full array of gray -- Weather off the North Atlantic, Limestone melting down into itself. A limestone so porous even Rain passes through, Stays slippery underfoot But never holds long enough To puddle or encourage growth. A few wildflowers cling to life In the crevices, out of this wind. Their purple and yellows fail To soften the moment. This is the twilit surface Of the moon, the wasteland, The aftermath, Purgatory, What we escaped from, what We know we are coming to. Folks around here like to tell How Cromwell's armies mourned This absence of trees, trees to hang The nearest papists from, nor water To drown them in, no ground For graves, nor dirt for the living To cover up their dead. Weather Weather weighs too much around here affects more than just mood and travel plans. It clings to us like someone else’s clothes we took by accident from a dryer at a laundromat we no longer can find. Why, today is too small, a very tight fit, restrictive, ready to rip open anytime; this tear in the seam seems to get wider each time I stand or walk around a bit. Of course, you know I’d never wear this color, and these boyish stripes make me look older than I really am and fatter. No need to mention fatter for that matter; the day puts pounds on everyone here – it weighs, it stays, like uninvited guests, like unfinished business, like the flu, like bad politics, bad plums, and, of course, bad verse.
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