by Helga Kidder
In this age of robots and instant gratification,
thank God, I still sadden at a golf ball
sized skull discovered gardening,
shudder at an immature serpent
caught in the rake among dried leaves.
It is easily coaxed between rocks in
this blackberry winter and mist rain
roses repay with profusion -- a transition
that lifts the mind off the ground, nose
closer to home and potato soup inside.
My mother's day bouquet blooms yellow
in a white basket like new age religion --
for a little while -- current TV shows,
the wilder the better, a step backward.
As long as we can stumble or limp or hop
on one foot forward, as long as our eyes
see promise on the horizon, a light ahead --
the way the early hominid, Orrorin Tugenensis,
must have whose bones found in Kenya
confirmed hip and upper leg had begun
adapting to walking upright.
Helga Kidder lives in the Tennessee hills. She received a BA from the University of Tennessee and an MFA from Vermont College. Her poems have appeared in Snake Nation Review, Louisville Review, Southern Indiana Review among many others.
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