After Edna St. Vincent Millay

Karen Eastlund hosts this week’s Roundup. Thank you, Karen. Find all the poetic offerings and end-of-June musings over at Karen’s Got a Blog!

This week I’m writing from Maine, and it feels so good to be back in my home state. Almost as if to welcome me home, one of my poems aired on WERU Community Radio in Blue, Hill, Maine last week.

During an April online workshop, participants were asked to write a poem using the first line of another poem. I began with the delicious first line of an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, “Elegy Before Death.”

There will be rose and rhododendron

(after Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Elegy Before Death”)

There will be rose and rhododendron

before you take your leave.

Apple blossoms’ heady scent

will welcome swarms of bees.

In the crotch of Cortland branches,

finches will nest and sing.

Eggs will hatch, young will fledge,

blind to your scourge’s sting.

There will be solitary picnics

beneath gnarled apple trees,

gratitude for setting fruit,

for cool shade of leaves.

Oh, would the plucked fruit of Eve,

her curious mind cursed,

yield knowledge of a longed-for cure

before orchard drops are pressed!

Your demise will leave us reeling.

Our wounds are grave and deep.

Not one of us will mourn your passing;

for you, we will not weep.

You can hear the radio recording of the poem on a post on my website, along with a piece about my writing journey. I’d love to have a visit from you!