ANN E. WALLACE

Of Grace and Silence

What I want today
is the voice 
of Alice Waters inviting me
into her warm kitchen,
to select greens,
imbibe their sweet fragrance,
shred them bit by bit
into an earthen bowl,
toss in oil, vinegar, a pinch
of good salt
with able hands,
to partake in the ancient art 
of crafting a meal 
with care and patience.
 
Today, I do not want
the flash and chime 
of text after text after text,
of email flooding my inbox,
all day, all night,
the grip pulling, tight
and tighter, in my chest
when I can’t keep up.
 
What I want today is small—
energy to tend my garden,
to pull, trim, snip 
the loud and wilted old growth, 
last year’s detritus 
that taunts me now
as I wake and gaze 
through the picture window,
to scoop a small grave
for the baby bird
that fell from her nest 
in the cherry tree
and pat cool soil
over her fragile wings,
to fill planters and beds 
and sit back, exhausted, 
and watch through the glass
as sparrows, finches,
and their songbird brethren 
flit and vie for short respite
at my backyard feeder.

Ann E. Wallace has a new poetry collection, Counting by Sevens, available from Main Street Rag. Recently published pieces in journals such as Mom Egg Review, Wordgathering, Snapdragon, Riggwelter, and Rogue Agent, can be found on her website AnnWallacePhD.com. She lives in Jersey City, NJ, where she is an English professor at New Jersey City University. You can follow her on Twitter @annwlace409.