Laura Kauffman

“Encore

The first swallows
Of the season
Looped the pines
Rocketed upward
Dare-deviled madly
In a carnival sky
Shot from a cannon
To the roar of applause
Contrails mapped
On flapping clouds

She traced her finger
Along their path
The way she had traced
The lines of veins
On her mother’s hand
As they waited for death

No applause
Just softly hummed
Lullabies that one
Once sang
To the other
In a petal pink room
With blanket and bed
A flapping curtain
In softer spring breeze

Now offered back
gently
From one to the other
To soothe once more
The fear of the night
The closing of curtains
And the end of the show”
― Laura Kauffman, Carolina Clay: A Collection of Poems on Love and Loss

“Use-less
I’m learning to love the ground that lies
Beneath my feet in the fallow season

The ground of the dormant, of sleeping life
That carries no promise of certain production

The ground of the nourished, fed by the death
Of the things that once bloomed

The ground of the passive, that simply receives
The rains of the fall and the rest of winter

The ground that cannot be measured
By the brightness of green breaking the rows

Or the richness of fruits that fall from the vines
Or the service it pays to some greater end

But holds its value in the simple act
Of embracing its wild and wonderful being.”
― Laura Kauffman, Carolina Clay: A Collection of Poems on Love and Loss