Two Poems by Kelley White

At the Gazebo, the Town Band

 

plays a Souza march.

I pluck leaves and twigs

out of blueberry buckets,

nibble hard green berries,

remembering the lake.

 

 

 

Fall Lambs

 

I pulled over to look at fall leaves and to talk to you,

the most serious of conversations, and then my words

were choked off, swallowed, as a bright red flag

unfurled from the rump of a ewe, became a purple gush,

saw her quick licking of the heavy lump and its

staggering rise to pink-eared whiteness, a miracle,

and even more--I had not expected, the other dropped,

and the mother, perhaps too tired to turn to more work,

or too in love with one newborn, the twin lay still,

ignored, until a child came from the shepherd’s house, lifted

the first lamb in her arms, carried it away, and the mother bent

to that second bundle and began her heavy kiss

 

 

 

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire.  Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are Toxic Environment (Boston Poet Press) and Two Birds in Flame (Beech River Books).  She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.