Enjoy two poems by Norma Gilbert Hammond: “Celebration” and “Memory Garden.” Both touch on markers of springtime: weddings and gardens.
Norma was born during the Depression years. She graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in physical therapy and practiced for more than thirty years. She is the mother of five grown children and grandmother of thirteen. She lives in Loveland, Colorado with her husband, Lynn. From her collection At the Edge of the Woods.
Veronica Patterson, Loveland’s first Poet Laureate is connecting Live Loveland with local poets and we will be sharing their work throughout 2019. Tell us which local writers you’re reading by tagging us with #livelovelandpoetryon social media.
Celebration
in a meadow
by a river
food and drink and laughter
flow
kids roll in grass
with a dog named Oscar,
music in a tent:
the bride wears a purple hat
dances polka, jitterbug,
with the groom, with her dad,
with a purple shadow
who keeps the step in flits and fades,
no one wants to leave,
we stand around in clots
of conversation, hugging old,
greeting new,
bathing
in the blessing of this
wedding
Celebration
Memory Garden
I keep digging
with my sorry fingernails
to make a cradle
for this milky
promise sent
in plain brown
wrapper, which has
mostly sloughed
away, but never mind,
I plant, cover it with
mulch-rich dirt crumbled
just so through my
fingers and give three
firm pats (hoping it was right side up)
with a little prayer for
bulbs
and for me
to try
to understand
yellow
the measuring and snipping
of threads,
how to thicken,
settle,
grow tough
as tulips