Kelly Cherry (1940-2022) was one of my teachers at UW-Madison. We had not remained in touch directly, but I continue to read and admire her work. After writing my own poem for today, which takes the form of a riddle, I thought one of her short poems that I have read so often that, without even trying to, I have committed it to memory. I was saddened to learn this morning that Kelly Cherry died last year. (Her own website is kellycherrybooks.com.)

This favorite poem of mine is from her book, Relativity: A Point of View (Louisiana State University Press, 1977).

A Riddle

My beauty is beyond compare
And easy reach. No man would dare
To comb my loosed effulgent hair.
I keep my distance but on rare
Occasions condescend to bear
Eight things that move a man to prayer
(Yet none a child), then disappear
In broad daylight beyond blue air.
Man's grasp still falls just short of there.

Answer

A comet. Coma means hair. According to a verse
published in the seventeenth century, the comet was
thought to bring "wind, famine, plague, death to kings,
earthquake, floods, and direful change."

Context for My Poem, “What?”:

The answer to my riddle is rather obvious, I think: thwarted ambition.

Lately rejections from editiors have flown in thick and fast, making me realize that the roots of my amibitions for my work, which I tend to think of as modest, must run deeper than I usually care to acknowledge. An iceberg structure, perhaps, with 9/10s below the level of consciousness? In any case, it helps to attempt to pin the emotion to the page in the form of a poem.

Now, to dust off my hands and move from black and white into the colorful, uplifting space of the garden!

Until tomorrow, LESLIE