Working the Soil
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
Under the brim of my straw hat,
I feel the warmth of sunlight
And wonder how I will get the earth
From beneath my finger nails.
With trowel and hands
I work the soil
To make it more than dirt.
Silty smooth, this earth,
This loam, is dark and lovely.
To offer softness
To the hardness of the world,
I mass cone flowers
In their colors of summer
Around the stump of the live oak.
Like ballerinas’ skirts,
The petals, pink and purple,
Flutter their grand-pliés
In the summer breeze,
But when dusky shadows pirouette
Across the flower bed
I watch the fading sunlight
Choreograph the dying swan.
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The Grid of Expectations
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
Caught in the folds of my long black dress,
limp lettuce and slices of radish
swish along the wet floor of the Met’s Grand Tier kitchen.
Not the grand stairway or glass and bronze facade
depicted in my dreams.
But situations change and cannot be contained in neat boxes
reflected in the liquid mirror of customary expectations.
The only elevator to my opera seat
is the freight lift, carrying boxes of shrimp and sausage,
croissants and cucumbers, and anyone who uses a wheelchair.
Lifting my skirts to avoid the worst of the puddles,
I roll past putrid pails of potato peels
and snakes of old spaghetti slithering from garbage cans.
I wonder if my splash of Prada will conceal the essence of rubbish
when I finally reach my raspberry velvet seat.
Other opera-goers settle amid the rustle of libretti
masking the squeak of my damp wheels on tile.
The great golden damask curtain opens to The Magic Flute.
And downstairs in the Atrium,
diners gather in the Lincoln Ristorante
enjoying their Valpolicella Superiore Roccolo Grassi
near Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure
while wishing coins wink in the reflecting pool
and snow coats leafless trees
caught twice in the solemn grid of circumstance.
“Working the Soil” was previously published in Softness for a Hard World: Poems and Photographs – Poems by Judith Krum, Photography by Kimberly Morgan Burke (Create Space, 2015). Create Space books are available on Amazon.com. Reprinted with permission.
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About the Author
Judith Krum is a teacher, counselor, writer, and disability rights advocate who earned her BA in English from Marietta College (Ohio) and her M.Ed. from McDaniel College (Maryland). Her work has been published in many anthologies, journals, and magazines. She has five published books on Amazon. Most recently, her memoir My M S Journey: Recalculating was published in December 2021. Born in New York, she has lived in Ohio, Maryland, Vermont, and now resides in Florida with her husband and their rescue pup. Judith was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1985. She has traveled widely in the British Isles, Italy, and the United States.