Cutleaf Evening Primrose — Image by kenne
Full
by Wendy Barker
Light splotches on the bed,
mesmerizing the morning.
Why rise from this dazzle?
But outside the kitchen door,
the first time in years, flickering
in the pittosporum’s froth, a dozen
dozen Monarch butterflies ignite
the green, their white freckled patches
shifting, rapid as a blink, and gone.
Not so the evening primroses
that open as the light is leaving
and remains even as the moon lifts
from the trees, even as you sit
steady above your book, until
you rise, and bring me your hands.
(Windy Barker is a poet and critic, and teaches literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Windy has been involved in several “Writer’s In Performance” events over the years.)
Becoming is Superior to Being 