Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Four children, two cars, and a forest of walnut trees

Three poems by Emily Grosholz

Emily Grosholz
Emily Grosholz

A Summer Place

  • The chestnut tree is sick, its bark scaled
  • By yellow lichen, its leaves curled and brown,
  • Falling already in August when the wind rises
  • Across the patio our rented farmhouse opens
  • Against the road. Yet still it casts a shade.
  • I sweep the boat-shaped leaves outside the gate,
  • Trying absurdly to clear the courtyard tiles, but
  • The road is haunted by djinn, wind-spirals
  • That round the house-edges, bedevil the leaves
  • Back into my face, past the gate, across the blue tiles.
  • All afternoon I’ve awaited my eldest son,
  • My wanderer, chasing his long shadow across
  • The crest of another hill, down the lead-silver river
  • Of country road. Will the djinn blow him back again
  • Round the gate, to the little harbor afloat with leaves?

Marriage

I.

Sponsored
Sponsored
  • Now when I watch the flicker
  • Of leaf-fall in September,
  • My house set among bright
  • Metamorphic oak, black walnut,
  • Maple, seems on fire.
  • Now when I meet my lover,
  • My husband, on the sheer
  • Distracted weekend, what I feel
  • Is not nostalgia, pale
  • As a remembered fever, rather
  • Something like an airplane’s tremor
  • Over the sea at Finisterre,
  • When sand dune, breaker, wake
  • Tracing the sailboat’s windward beat,
  • Change as they disappear.

II.

  • After another fugitive but highly scheduled mid-morning rendez-vous,
  • Children at school, laundry folded, professorial tasks suspended in air,
  • I brush my teeth and hair, admiring the pretty girl framed by the mirror,
  • Hardly a day over sixty, roses in her cheeks and sparks in her wide green eyes.
  • If I’d had a date like that when I was twenty, I undoubtedly would have given
  • Notice to all my other hapless boyfriends, and thrown over my formal studies
  • And even my citizenship, hightailing it south-south-west to another clime or season,
  • And even God, abjuring the hope of heaven for the purgatorial hill of earthly delights.
  • Yet here I am, at home, my studies completed, those unscrolled, gold-stamped higher
  • Degrees conferred, a fixed university post with endless disputes and a library-office,
  • Four children, two cars, and a forest of walnut trees in flux behind the back garden,
  • And sunlight streaming uncontainably across our unmade bed like divine laughter.

Counterpane

for Maxine and Victor Kumin, in memoriam

  • Boomer, daughter of Taboo,
  • Dam of Hallelujah, and
  • Earlier of Praise Be,
  • Today lies under snow,
  • Her coverlet precisely
  • Quilted by the hand
  • Of February and her kind
  • Owners, over many years,
  • In rail fence pattern,
  • Except for one edge where
  • A bright celestial neighbor
  • Adds a square: north star.

Emily Grosholz has taught philosophy at Penn State and also served as an advisory editor and contributor to The Hudson Review for over 30 years. Her seventh book of poetry, Childhood (with drawings by Lucy Vines), was published in 2014 by Accents Publishing and has raised over $2000 in sales for UNICEF.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Why did Harrah's VP commit suicide last summer?

Did the fight the Rincon casino had with San Diego County over Covid play a part?
Next Article

Tijuana sewage infects air in South Bay

By September, Imperial Beach’s beach closure broke 1000 consecutive days
Emily Grosholz
Emily Grosholz

A Summer Place

  • The chestnut tree is sick, its bark scaled
  • By yellow lichen, its leaves curled and brown,
  • Falling already in August when the wind rises
  • Across the patio our rented farmhouse opens
  • Against the road. Yet still it casts a shade.
  • I sweep the boat-shaped leaves outside the gate,
  • Trying absurdly to clear the courtyard tiles, but
  • The road is haunted by djinn, wind-spirals
  • That round the house-edges, bedevil the leaves
  • Back into my face, past the gate, across the blue tiles.
  • All afternoon I’ve awaited my eldest son,
  • My wanderer, chasing his long shadow across
  • The crest of another hill, down the lead-silver river
  • Of country road. Will the djinn blow him back again
  • Round the gate, to the little harbor afloat with leaves?

Marriage

I.

Sponsored
Sponsored
  • Now when I watch the flicker
  • Of leaf-fall in September,
  • My house set among bright
  • Metamorphic oak, black walnut,
  • Maple, seems on fire.
  • Now when I meet my lover,
  • My husband, on the sheer
  • Distracted weekend, what I feel
  • Is not nostalgia, pale
  • As a remembered fever, rather
  • Something like an airplane’s tremor
  • Over the sea at Finisterre,
  • When sand dune, breaker, wake
  • Tracing the sailboat’s windward beat,
  • Change as they disappear.

II.

  • After another fugitive but highly scheduled mid-morning rendez-vous,
  • Children at school, laundry folded, professorial tasks suspended in air,
  • I brush my teeth and hair, admiring the pretty girl framed by the mirror,
  • Hardly a day over sixty, roses in her cheeks and sparks in her wide green eyes.
  • If I’d had a date like that when I was twenty, I undoubtedly would have given
  • Notice to all my other hapless boyfriends, and thrown over my formal studies
  • And even my citizenship, hightailing it south-south-west to another clime or season,
  • And even God, abjuring the hope of heaven for the purgatorial hill of earthly delights.
  • Yet here I am, at home, my studies completed, those unscrolled, gold-stamped higher
  • Degrees conferred, a fixed university post with endless disputes and a library-office,
  • Four children, two cars, and a forest of walnut trees in flux behind the back garden,
  • And sunlight streaming uncontainably across our unmade bed like divine laughter.

Counterpane

for Maxine and Victor Kumin, in memoriam

  • Boomer, daughter of Taboo,
  • Dam of Hallelujah, and
  • Earlier of Praise Be,
  • Today lies under snow,
  • Her coverlet precisely
  • Quilted by the hand
  • Of February and her kind
  • Owners, over many years,
  • In rail fence pattern,
  • Except for one edge where
  • A bright celestial neighbor
  • Adds a square: north star.

Emily Grosholz has taught philosophy at Penn State and also served as an advisory editor and contributor to The Hudson Review for over 30 years. Her seventh book of poetry, Childhood (with drawings by Lucy Vines), was published in 2014 by Accents Publishing and has raised over $2000 in sales for UNICEF.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Extended family dynamics

Many of our neighbors live in the house they grew up in
Next Article

Dia de los Muertos Celebration, Love Thy Neighbor(Hood): Food & Art Exploration

Events November 2-November 6, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader