Bedside, I hold your plump hand, cold, white thread of foam sewing your lips shut, as if you disapprove of crying. It would be horrible if not for the knowing you’d transformed, universe having finished contracting, your soul sucked backed to the source, reverse birth, energy united, ready for reincarnation. How I’ll remember that exact …
for my mother-in-law on the morning of her passing These leaves, white with winter, and those frozen, spiky cones, then, a cement barrier, marked “no trespassing,” protecting a broken dam– seagulls pay no mind to signs. On the side of the rough road, two frozen dandelions, still yellow, look ridiculously optimistic, as a horn beeps …
My paltry decades of living and I cannot understand how mountains bear their memories. -Katherine Gotthardt
And there, amidst the mange, a tranquil tuft of growth, baby-haired, white. The whole world hummed, as if it, too, were new. -Katherine Gotthardt
In latter days, the solar- scorched world proved heavy- handed, callous palms swiping back. Retribution. -Katherine Gotthardt
That garden you decided to plant? How it took time to turn over the soil, get past the sweat, that insistent dust settling on your white sneakers. You cussed. Later you’d take that first bite of cucumber, squirting refreshment from summer rains, several thick slices inviting another serving. It felt a little like happiness.
It is Wednesday, and I put my work on pause. I find my old art bag, carry watercolor pencils to Battlefield Park. My leggings pick up hitch hikers, their bristles clinging to me, as if I were a spring tree, and they, leaves. And suddenly, I am six again, wearing fuchsia, new sneakers already muddy. …
By Katherine Gotthardt Somewhere in the midst of life’s lessons, I’m forgetting how to speak. I think it might be the COVID solitude, demanding silence and order and discipline, the daily tidying of a cluttered workspace I don’t want anyone to see. Or maybe it’s approaching winter, early morning frost telling us all to hush. …
