THE VIEW FROM WHERE I SIT

by Brooke Herter James

 

The cloud of fog

hovering

over the mountain

has shaped itself

into a jaunty cap—

the kind one might wear

to a party 

or a parade.

Brooke Herter James is a poet living in Vermont.

TO THOSE WHO REFUSE TO WEAR A FACE MASK WHEN ADVISED TO DO SO

A WARNING

by Brooke Herter James

Last week I was strolling the banks
of a creek in Montana when,
out of seemingly nowhere,
a sandhill crane exploded
from the tall grass at my feet.
She was fully my height,
her wings wide open,
beating theair,
her long beak pointing—
jabbing at me.

Beneath her, two eggs.

I am a mother,  too. I get it.

Especially right now,
with one child, pregnant,
working twelve-hour shifts
as a nurse in a walk-in clinic
clear across the country.

If you choose not to wear a face mask—
and you get sick—
and you seek care from my daughter
or any of the thousands of health care workers
who are some one else’s beloved child—
thereby endangering them with your selfishness,
I will come after you like that sandhill crane.
It’s that simple.

Brooke Herter James is the author of two poetry chapbooks: The Widest Eye ( 2016) and Spring took the Long Way Around (2019). Her poems have appeared in PoemTown Vermont as well as the online publications Poets Reading the News, TheNewVerse.News, Flapper Press, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice (forthcoming).  She was chosen as a finalist in the Poetry Society of Vermont’s 2019 National Poetry Contest. She lives on a hillside in Vermont with her husband, four hens, two donkeys and a dog.

WHEN WE KNOW THE DANGER

by Brooke Herter James

when it means pushing
the bureau across the bare floor
to jam the door shut   hiding

behind the curtain    cowering
beneath the chair   between the legs
of someone bigger  stronger

when we know the scary
inside is worse than
the whatever out there

can we open the windows
and take off our masks
just long enough to scream?


Brooke Herter James is a poet and children’s book author living in Vermont.

SHELTERING

by Brooke Herter James

“Parakeet” by Kees van Dongen,ca. 1910, oil on canvas, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Still life  day 28
here in Vermont
a solitary junco
half black
half white
sitting on the branch
half white
half black
against a backdrop of pond
black—rimmed with white—
thank goodness for
the small red barn
in the lower right corner
of the scene

I imagine painting
over this canvas
apple blossoms
puffy clouds   a woman
in the foreground
faded yellow robe
leaning out her second
story window
to hang blue towels
and flowered sheets
on one end of a
never-vanishing cord
that travels from this hillside
to Milan   then Barcelona
Wuhan   Jerusalem   Sydney
Seattle  New Orleans  New York

An endless clothesline
adorned  with the fabric
of the world billowing
outwards   music spilling
from all those unshuttered
windows   wafts of coffee
baked bread   squeals of children
running down hallways
pinging marbles on bare floors
dogs barking
I imagine painting
parakeets in wooden cages
singing while we wait


Brooke Herter James is a poet and children’s book author living in Vermont.

IF I COULD

by Brooke Herter James

If I could I would
send you the sound
of brittle birch branches
tapping tiny buds
against my windowpane
this chilly March morning,
the silence of the solitary
bluebird sitting on top
of her nesting box,
the little snorts of the donkeys
as they make their way
around fast disappearing
islands of snow. I would
send you the sound
of sap dripping
into metal buckets,
of tiny blades of grass
pushing through ice.
Even as the lights are turning
off all over the world
I would send you
the sound of spring,
its quiet resolve.

Brooke Herter James is the author of one children’s picture book and two poetry chapbooks. She lives on a small Vermont hillside with her husband, two donkeys, four chickens and a dog.