Dispatch #165

Guest poet: Monika Cooper

Friends, occasionally I’ll present the work of a guest poet in this space, as I aim to expand (just slightly) the range of Dispatches From the Basement.

I’m happy to share this set of lunes and haiku by fellow Catholic poet Monika Cooper. Most of you know what a haiku is. The “lune” is a form devised by American poet Robert Kelly — it has a shorter syllable count (5/3/5) than standard haiku (5/7/5).

Since today is the celebration of the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I thought it would be appropriate to share a handful of Cooper’s poems written for an earlier celebration: the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows.

You don’t have to be Catholic to savor these poems — they are rich in sound and imagery, and ask to be received slowly.

      from tiny carmina 

(barefoot)

glass of blossoms at
bronze feet: on
blossoms a bronze bee

*

jingle in the dark
time rivers
over rosary

*

the chapel’s screen door
gasps open – shadows inside,
the storm behind me

*

six-sectioned window:
computer burned eyes see Her
floating in one pane

*

fire in the East. the
horizon
burns brown, like paper

*

wind stirring silver
into the
lilacs and the green

*

summer day: laundry
throws shadows
on further laundry

*

parallel ripples:
beads stringing
across the dusk lake

*

pray the rosary
to extract
the gospel syrups

*

sun slanting athwart
pine trees: a
long and peaceful rain

Monika Cooper studied literature and lyric poetry at Thomas More College and University of Dallas. She and her husband are raising and educating their three children in New England. Her book, Allegories of the King, is forthcoming from Cooper & Posey.