BRENDA SEROTTE

Below, I have the honor of printing a poem from my dear friend, the poet, Zan Gay. It's perfect for me, too, at this time, expecting my first grandchild in September:

WIND CHIMES for STELLA

Clasp the clacker
with your small hand
as I lift you high,
all fifteen pounds of you
in your eighth month of life.
Chime the Mystery Bells
competing
with the oriole in the oak.
Beneath your feet strawberries,
tomatoes, corn
enriched with your Mama’s placenta
from your home birth.
Run run in her garden
in the sun then shade,
shadow unknown to you now
that everthing, everyone will end one day.
Run run
all the days and all the seasons to come.

Zan Gay, for her granddaughter, Stella


I imagine that this will be the very last time I'll "hate" September, and soon will have to write a poem about LOVING September!"

REASONS WHY I HATE SEPTEMBER

Thirty days hath September. And that’s about it.
H.G. Schneider

School. Nowadays, most begin in August,
back then, it meant the end of summer
friends, walking in painful new shoes
to a stifling city classroom. Good-bye
to breezes, freedom.

The Jewish holidays. Arriving late
in the ninth month, oppressive guilt
for not fasting, stuck to the dress of
fat Mrs. Matarasso, in our ancient synagogue,
choking on her Evening in Paris.

Hurricanes, of course. They love this month,
come one behind the other, you’re never sure
it’s fall until the hot winds stop.
Even simple words that rhyme
with September, like

Remember, bring a certain sadness.
There was a summer plague, long gone,
came ‘round to call on kids.
Not in July or August, but well after,
when autumn leaves were peak

and gorgeous. By late October,
all grief, all over.

Brenda Serotte

SATURDAY MORNING, LABOR DAY WEEKEND

A bald woman cuts her man's hair on the porch
two girls frolic in a neighbor's pool. One
remains under water.
A three-legged dog
tries outrunning a toddler
but he's slow,
much too slow.

Steamy at summer's end,
even hotter than yesterday.
Ficus leaves cease their pathetic
tremblings in homage to stillness.
The yellow fire-rescue truck
shrieks down the block—
still, the child has not surfaced
summer is not yet over...

Brenda Serotte