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[ 3 poems by Grey Brown ]
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Costume
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I am five, maybe six,
and my mother
is taking pictures of me
in my costume.
I stand statue still
before the hearth,
sneakers on,
plastic pumpkin in hand,
ready.
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I have chosen a princess dress
and a witch hat.
I like the way I look in purple
and pink, but I need the hat.
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My teenage brother walks by
and announces that
I cannot be both
a princess and a witch.
Because of the hat
I am bold and remind him
that he is too old for Halloween
and that no matter what I am,
witch, princess or sister,
he will not be getting candy.
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My mother does not say a word
but cocks an eyebrow
the way she does
when she is reading a good book.
Then, as a princess,
I bow.
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Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
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On Belief
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My daughter learns of constellations,
the unfinished dot-to-dot
of Andromeda and Cassiopeia,
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the poor mother and baby bears
headless, missing paws.
She dreams of planets
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and their rings,
adoring moons
that spin and sing.
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Stargazing, we find our way
to a dark, empty field
to view the comet.
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My daughter imagines
bold strokes, a ball of light
with a vivid, streaming tail,
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cartoon crisp and lively colored.
But she finds only
a blurred hairball of dust and ice.
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more chaos than divine creation,
at best, the whorled thumbprint
of some god, preoccupied.
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Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
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❀ ❀ ❀
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I Hate October
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I just seem to lose family and friends
as the light angles down—
my grandmother to colon cancer,
the neighbor’s daughter
who just overdosed,
my dearest friend tucked in a shawl,
the book falling from his hand.
They all seem to let go,
as daylight wanes
and a cool hand disturbs the earth.
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I talk more to my mother
at this time of year,
but she is of little help,
so bad at living herself,
her drinking and smoking.
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She passed in the fall
of her fifty-ninth year.
She was an ardent fan
of witches and ghosts,
pumpkins and gourds.
I still decorate for her
trying to do my best
with the darkness.
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Grey Brown
from Communion, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Valley Community College Press. Hickory, NC; © 2026
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❀ ❀ ❀
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Last week I caught a portion of an interview with an avant garde artist describing his latest installation. The interviewer asked what message the artist intended his art to convey. The artist replied, “A bad poem descends into meaning.” Well, that is certainly one statement that has opted not to descend into meaning. What is a good poem, then? Incomprehensible?
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Maybe a good poem does hold meaning, but close, cupped in its hands. The reader, craning for a glimpse, is encouraged to open his or her own hands and discover what meaning may be found within. The good poem is not a meal cut into bits for a toothless child; it is an enticement for the complex palate. And reading a poem is no dry exercise in wheedling out the poet’s intent; it is savoring, experiencing. The poem doesn’t descend into meaning. The reader does.
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Grey Brown’s poems in Communion, taken one by one, do not descend – they hover. Each one flashes into existence, the sudden arrival of a hummingbird. It pauses in flight and for a moment we can count every exquisite feather of its crimson gorget, but its wings are still whirring too fast to see. And then the next poem arrives. Line by line, page by page, the reader begins to perceive what is cupped in the poet’s hands. A sacrament that promises grace and life? A keen blade to mingle the blood of both reader and writer alike?
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The book’s introduction defines communion as the sharing or exchange of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level. These poems are precisely such a serial exchange, linked in sequence of unfolding awareness, joined together not only by the progression of years and generations but also by the uncertainty, disappointment, and revelation that are inherent in one’s personal search for meaning. With the turn of each page, I find myself reflecting on my own fears and failures. Is there any hope for salvation? The poet grants a glimpse: none of us ever really survive, / but we get by.
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❀
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Grey Brown (Chapel Hill, NC) is the founder of the Literary Arts Program of the Health Arts Network at Duke and served as director for 25 years. Communion is her second full length poetry collection and is available from Redhawk Publications.
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Additional poetry by Grey Brown at Verse and Image:
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. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
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