Altar of Spice
Grandmother created with cinnamon and salt.
Scents of baking live in the deepest brain
forever. Like prayers we taste even in our dreams.
We use and are ourselves the usefulness.
Words another fragrance, indelible.
Someone’s wheel forms the idea
of a vase. A threaded loom
the bones of a beautiful blanket.
My neighbor is out planting with faith
there will be sweetness. Down the street,
someone is grooming a horse. Its whinny
of pleasure echoes all the way to my back door.
I hold a comb, a needle, a measuring cup,
a pen, to feel the body’s urgency.
Our talents form the altar of the world.
Joanne Clarkson‘s sixth poetry collection, Hospice House, was released by MoonPath Press in 2023. Her volume, The Fates, won Bright Hill Press’ annual contest and appeared in 2017. Her poems have been published in such journals as Poetry Northwest, Nimrod, The Schooner, Alaska Quarterly Review and American Journal of Nursing. Clarkson has Masters Degrees in English and Library Science, has taught and worked as a professional librarian. After caring for her mother through a long illness, she re-careered as a Hospice RN. Currently, she teaches writing classes at a farm for retired and rescued horses.
Amethyst Review 