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He, the oldest, was / the last to leave and / took our childhood with him.
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[with 3 poems by Irene Blair Honeycutt]
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When the Last Page Turns
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When the last page turns
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will I step into a star
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on a moonless night
.
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or drift deep into the dark
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maybe alight on your door screen
.
a firefly – a single green lantern?
.
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Wherever I was when last
.
you read me
.
let the empty space
.
remember
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Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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My mother has died. I am no longer a child.
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What has she taken with her? I remember her fingers like butterflies across the keys, the baby grand in the tiny house on Marion Road. She played Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca at warp speed while Bob and I, three and five, whirled and flailed and leaped until we collapsed in convulsions of laughter. She gave us music, yes, and art and games and stories, but what I remember is the laughing.
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Such a childhood she gave us. An old wig, staring eyes painted on her cheekbones, she became a wooly booger to take me trick-or-treating next door. The neighbors startled, then laughed, dubious, not entirely certain it was really her. She was sixty-five, I was forty, such children.
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All the quiet moments before and between, quieter and quieter as her days slowed and faded – thank God I slowed enough with her to share a few. She had been the wizard of noticing, of pattern recognition, spotting a prothonotary warbler, racing the last few pieces into another puzzle at the beach or in her townhouse living room. These past years I named for her the house finch on the feeder, pushed pieces on the table to be closer to where they would fit. Helped with the morning crossword she used to whipsaw in ink. Held a napkin to catch drips from her popsicle on the front porch.
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Who foresees becoming a parent to their parent? Who wants that job? My mother has passed into that kingdom where all she has left to bestow are memories. Her last power, her final gift. Has she taken everything else with her? Innocence? Joy? My childhood?
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No. Not at all. In the nursing home, I lean my bald head to thunk against my equally bald father’s. We laugh. Such children.
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❦ ❦ ❦
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Joy
++++++++++ after Mary Szybist
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I had the happy idea I could be eating breakfast at my
++ friend’s table in California and become bees pollinating
++ her roses.
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Over oatmeal and blueberries, I saw the Lafayette hills mixed
++ with shadow and light reflected in the patio window.
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I had the happy idea I could enter the reflection and begin
++ hiking the path to the eucalyptus trees.
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Sitting in the gravity chair on the deck, I imagined myself
++ a passenger on a jet, flying East of Eden on a Long Day’s
++ Journey into Night.
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I had the happy idea I could be both the seashell sunning in
++ a Peruvian basket and hot-pink geraniums soaking up
++ water in terra-cotta pots.
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I had the happy idea I could become Jarrell’s bat-poet, hitch
++ a ride on a red-shouldered hawk, write a poem while
++ hovering above the witch’s house after Gretel pushes her
++ into the oven.
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I had the happy idea apples and walnuts and pomegranates
++ could mingle. A host of flavors and fragrances never
++ before tasted or smelled would be born.
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My happiest wish was that the ocean would wash over my
++ skin and purify the life within my body. The marrow
++ of my bones, the tissue beneath my skull, would all be
++ renewed.
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And if I truly imagined myself as happy, the pines with
++ candle-like candelabras would light up each night. No
++ one would even try to explain the mystery.
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Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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In A Song for the Hours, Irene Blair Honeycutt eulogizes the commonplace and the exalted: railroad spikes and a dead possum, John Donne and Typhoid Mary, a fragment of memory and a burst of birdsong. The message of the poem and the power of every poem in the collection resides in Song’s closing line: I am here. Irene fully inhabits the hours, the moments, and breathes them into poetry.
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To notice: superpower of poets, gift of the muse, or hard-won skill requiring grueling apprenticeship? Read Mountains of the Moon and you may discover clues. Irene gathers places she has known deeply, music and art that have touched her, friendships and griefs, and awakens them – she gives them new life. Perhaps the “noticing” is equal parts paying attention to what is happening around you as well as to the warp and weft within that weave the fabric of your soul. Because Irene’s poems are taken from her true experience and inner truth, then freely, openly given to us, we readers may also be drawn into the noticing.
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A confession: I often tell myself I have nothing left to write. Then I spend an hour with a book like Mountains of the Moon and discover threads within myself that have been calling to untangle themselves into words. Reading poetry has power to jiggle the notice! synapses. And, as usual, the most profound thing one notices is that we humans share in common a wealth of pain and joy. A gift indeed.
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❦
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The opening line of today’s selection is from Irene Blair Honeycutt’s Why, among my brothers.
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Mountains of the Moon, by Irene Blair Honeycutt, is available from Charlotte Lit Press.
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❦ ❦ ❦
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Milkweed, Jonas Ridge, NC
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That spring she planted milkweed across the road from
Cozie Cottage on Bald Mountain. It was 2008. Thought
she was doing it for the butterflies.
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By 2010 the milkweed had spread across the field, reaching
the apple trees. During the Great Migration, waves of
Monarchs followed invisible scents
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to her place. Spent several splendid nights. Imagine ecstasy.
Plentiful drumming, feeding, laying of eggs.
.
Before they left, Susan drove her mother through
the wonder of it all –
.
Grandfather Mountain watching in the distance.
In 2014 her mother, at 96, took flight.
.
Though the milkweed has thinned and moved down
the slope, it remains a plant of hope. 2024.
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For the Monarch. The earth.
And for the memories it sows.
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Irene Blair Honeycutt
from Mountains of the Moon, Charlotte Lit Press, Charlotte NC; © 2024
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❦ ❦ ❦
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Mountains of the Moon is a terrific collection and it’s great to see some of Irene’s poems here.
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Thanks, Richard. And BTW I’ve gotten a lot from your recent book reviews in Main Street Rag. Thanks for those impressions and insights. —B
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Thanks, Bill. I will have a review of Irene’s book in a future issue of The Main Street Rag, hopefully the next issue. It’s always to me to compare comments of different reviewers (or commenters) especially with regard to which poems they choose to talk about. In Mountains of the Moon there are so many excellent poems it was hard for me to pick favorites. Richard Allen Taylor Author, LETTERS TO KAREN CARPENTER AND OTHER POEMS available here https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/letters-to-karen-carpenter-richard-allen-taylor/ Check out my new website: Richard Allen Taylor, Poet https://richardallentaylor.com/
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