MARCH

by Juditha Dowd

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock

Once again we’ve let ourselves be taken in by spring. 
Words we haven’t spoken for months come tumbling 
from our mouths. Tulip, soil, survival. 
Fools that we are to trust a tease so early in the season, 
we need it like we need the cat to see ourselves 
in a rosier light—young and more attentive—aspiring 
to the better selves we seem to have forgotten. 
We need it like we need the moon to make the universe 
believable. I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to write 
a poem without any mention of spring or moon or hope
so maybe that’s worth a try. But night still comes too early. 
I see you’ve already poured the wine, set a glass 
beside my chair where a cat sits watching the fire. 
If I don’t close these blinds right now, the rising moon 
might keep me here, wandering the galaxies. 
In case it’s true that hope cannot eternally renew itself
or spring last longer than today, let me let me stay with 
what I know tonight, release the cord and step away.
 

Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Kestrel, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Presence and elsewhere.

AUGUST

by Juditha Dowd

This evening it occurs to me I ought to call my mom and dad
because it’s been a while. And for a moment they are not
gone some fifteen and thirty-six years, but still at the house 
where I left them, the first of their children to depart.
It’s summer and steamy and all the windows are open wide.
She’s on the porch working the Sunday crossword.
He’s out back picking tomatoes or wielding some tool—
lawnmower, drill, or paint brush. For what they may lack 
in talents or skill they substitute perseverance.  
Today I took tomatoes from the garden we extended again
in this post-pandemic summer, the leaves already mottled 
with a virus that will kill the plant but doesn’t harm us. 
Here too it’s hot and humid, like that year my twin brothers 
caught polio, from swimming at a public pool some said.
The same August our younger brother almost drowned 
in the deep end and our country joined the Korean war,
though my father was too old to fight in that one. 
If only my phone could find them tonight, I’d assure them 
I’ll get another booster. Or bemoan the endless shootings,
the forest fires, the latest wars… Or instead I might say 
It’s 100° and I’m making a tomato sandwich. 
Maybe leave it at that. They’d know what I mean.
 
 
Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She was a 2022 finalist for the Adrienne Rich Award and has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Florida Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.

NOVEMBER AGAIN

by Juditha Dowd

and I’m doubtful

that no experience goes to waste

if only we’re able to learn from it.

Deer have mangled our deer fence,

that fox is prowling the yard.

Where will we be next year

when these maples shed their gold?

You and I have lived enough

to pretend at wisdom,

take the long view,

but the angles are foreshortened

as our fields turn murky and cold.

Soon the Long Night Moon

and two-faced Janus.

Soon the weeks of ice,

the days of mending.

Juditha Dowd’s most recent book is Audubon’s Sparrow, a verse biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon, wife of the naturalist.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

by Juditha Dowd

Moon Behind the Oak, a photograph by Alinore Rose

Instead I watched the moon. I watched the moon climb up

the branches of the Rosenbauers’ oak and lift off into open sky.

By then a few stars and planets had pierced the urban night,

their sparkle suggesting forward movement as I viewed them

alone from our porch—it seemed they were headed somewhere.

Soon I was so caught up in thinking about their voyage

I forgot about the frost and the ruined tomatoes and the ruin

of where we’re headed here on earth, driven by barking dogs.

Is it better now that we understand the stars? Was it easier to believe

that all is preordained and all we need to do is bow our heads

and go along? I watched the moon find the windows of every house

on our block. Same moon, same light. I watched until it crested

and fell down our hill toward the college. Then there was nothing

to do but go back in.

 

Juditha Dowd’s latest book is Audubon’s Sparrow (Rose Metal Press, 2020).

QUARANTINE AUBADE

by Juditha Dowd

"Lifeline" by Pascal Campion

The trucker is hauling food. We often hear him down on
the river road around this hour, hitting his Jake brakes,
slowing his rig on the curves. The sound bounces up and out,
finds us here on College Hill—wide-awake at four o’clock,
trying to return to sleep. He pauses at the highway ramp,
crosses the river, picks up speed. Soon he’ll unload at a market,
where workers rush to stock the shelves, where items spurned
for years are in demand: dry beans, yeast and prunes.
And here in the dark I’m my grandmother’s little girl again,
helping to squeeze red dye into bags of oleomargarine, waiting
to eat the biscuits she’ll take from her small white oven
while she listens to the radio, hopes there may be a letter today
from my uncle in the Army. Always the waiting. For the
the morning paper, twice-daily mail. Always we want news.
Bless our neighbor leaving now for what must be essential work.
Beams from his headlights circle the room. Birds are beginning
to stir, recalling those childhood mornings when I rose ahead of
my family, roused by their chorus, lifted into the dawn on wings.
After breakfast I’ll weed radishes we planted on a day that seems
like years go. Despite a killing frost, they’ve sprouted leaves.
Light is on the way. See how the air is whitening? That there’s
food … and those who must be fed. No certainties but these today.

Juditha Dowd’s latest book is Audubon’s Sparrow, a verse biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon, out this month from Rose Metal Press. She has contributed work to many journals and anthologies, including Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, Spillway, Ekphrasis, Rock & Sling, and Florida Review.