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[2 poems from Kakalak 2025]
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Milkweed
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There will come a day in Autumn when the pods
open like eyes and weep into the wind little brown
teardrops that do not fall to the earth without first
being born by strands of silken hair, white like mine,
and I who cannot fathom the god
introduced and re-introduced to me all my life
know that I must search instead for the fine
intellect, the playful imagination, the deep-felt
biophilia of the goddess who created this
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tuft-winged drifter, tiny parachutist, one
among thousands, that has climbed up onto the wind,
now sails by my window, clears the fence, crosses the road without
looking both ways, floats across the barren field, up, up, caught
and flung by the Anemoi up and onward, sailing,
sailing, until the breezes abate, then, like a maestro’s arm
sweeping back and forth with the lyrical measures, lowers
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itself, bit by bit, until it settles onto the earth where rains
will ruin its magnificent floss and time will rake
over it a blanket of soil. It will sleep all winter, cozy
hibernator, await the magical marriage of warmth and rain,
awaken ++++++++++++ then reach
+++++ with root, ++++++++++ then shoot,
+++++ down, +++++++++ +++ then up,
search for Hydro, +++++ for Helios, +++++++++ stretch.
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Become.
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Gina Malone
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Molasses Melodies
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When I hear a sweet Southern drawl,
I feel that slight twinge of shame.
My heart pines for the ease of
slow molasses on my tongue.
There’s a taste of it, way down.
Like a valley crick tumbling through
shady woods, full of oaks and hickory.
I yearn for smooth vowels in words
shaped by hills in the distance.
Rolling over and over to enjoy
the way sounds feel in my mouth.
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Without knowing it, I sold my heritage,
plum ruint my Southern soul
with every g added on to:
fixin’, fishin’, fussin’ and fightin’.
Turned all my cain’ts to can’ts.
Traded my Piedmont roots,
so people didn’t have to taste
the red clay in my words.
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Maeve Fox
from Kakalak 2025, Moonshine Review Press, Harrisburg NC; © 2025
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❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀
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. . . the way sounds feel in my mouth. A poem is a song, a duet of heart and mind. A trio when soul joins the chorus. Maybe the poem conceives itself from words and story and form, but the poem lives in the wedding of music and meaning. A throaty rumble in my gut. A bright lance in my mind. The poem is the way sounds feel deep in the core of me.
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Each of these two poems in its own way rumbles and trembles me. The earth goddess loves all creation enough to send feathered seedlets dancing. The root and spring of a person’s source never go dry but bubble to the surface. I find joy and celebration in these poems, and joy finds me.
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And these poems are personal. Last week my granddaughter and I found dried pods at the edge of the garden – dogbane, cousin of milkweed – and peeled them apart to watch their delicate floss rise in the wind. My mother, born and raised in Winston-Salem, kept that faint sweetness in her voice for 96 years until her death last year. Whether she lived in Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, when neighbors would comment, “Cookie is from the South,” when she spoke all I ever heard was Mom. Thank you, Poetry, for connecting me to precious moments and to memories I need to live.
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❀
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Gina Malone (Waynesville, NC) asks What Does Anyone Know About Goddesses? in her new chapbook from Kelsay Books, 2025.
Maeve Fox (Hickory, NC) is a mediator who writes about LGBT and Appalachain life, and she has a new book from Redhawk, Letting Go of Me.
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These poems (and author bios) are from the newest Kakalak anthology of poetry and art, published annually. Voices new and established. Songs of longing, songs of celebration. Purchase Kakalak HERE and consider submitting your own work in 2026.
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❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
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Thanks again for joining the conversation.
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– Bill
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Once again “Kakalak” offers light in dark times. Gina Malone’s work is a tribute to the passing of time, when autumn comes and, she tells us, “the pods/open like eyes and weep into the wind….” I want to memorize this gorgeous and brave poem. Equally striking, Maeve Fox’s “Molasses Melodies” breaks my heart with the servings of beauty in the taste of “smooth vowels in words/shaped by hills in the distance.” I am eager to read more work by both of these gifted poets. Thank you, Bill, for joining “Kakalak” in warming these icy winter days.
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Wonderful observations, Mary Alice. Thank you. —B
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I love milkweed poems. The unpacking of words like the bursting forth of milkweed pods to float, to become, to renew.
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Nice juxtaposition, Les. Have you ever seen hemp dogbane pods? Tight and hard and skinnier than a pencil, but if you twist them the feathered seedlet burst out. Fun for a granddaughter and it was a windy day — no telling where we’ll be seeing dogbane next summer. —B
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Dear Bill,
I enjoyed these poems by Gina Malone and Maeve Fox, great choices from a sea of great choices in Kakalak 2025. Your comments, as always, are right on target. Thanks!
Richard 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 website: Richard Allen Taylor, Poet https://richardallentaylor.com/
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Thanks Richard. I appreciate hearing from you. —B
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