Green salvos fired from below
sent up these bugles, their cups
blaring white and yellow Sousa
music – a parade of twirlers
that struts past old magnolias
in white, purple, and rose –
strung gray with lichen,
spilling damask petals
slick as a snake’s belly.
Fog and clear blue trade places.
Sun and stars, by turns, peek
inside the glass garden house
at two love birds asleep
above pots of narcissus
and hyacinth banked deep
around the cages. The fan-back
chair awaits a breather’s swoon.
At the gate someone waves
cars along as if to say, Go on,
get yourself stunned. Miles
of oaks later you stagger out,
reading botanical labels
if you can focus, besotted
as a heron stalking stiltlike
in the meadow, unmoved
by the faint of heart.
—
Irene Adler was a poet and English teacher in Palo Alto, California, where she was also a co-owner of the company that invented the Aerobie flying ring and the Aeropress coffee maker. By the time of her death in October 2023, she had written over 2,000 poems spanning 25 years. These were collated and curated for a posthumous collection, Bone Flute, which will be published in Spring 2025 by Paloma Press.
