Out of the Blue
Sometimes near sunset
a thunderhead
sits on a city,
its lead weight
waiting,
when a sudden
glory of turquoise
and pearl unfurls,
rises to the skyline’s
full height—
the Free French
on their feet
in Casablanca,
singing “La Marseillaise.”
In the Garden
I twist strands
of my hair,
fine and silver
as my grandmother’s,
the first time
my baby hands
pressed them
to my cheek.
“What week was that?”
I wonder,
“Were daffodils leaning
on the breeze as now —
cows all facing west?”
Carolyn Russell Stonewell was one of five winners of the first Cambridge Sidewalk Poetry Contest in 2015, and that haiku also appears on the interior steps of Cambridge Public Library (Main Branch). For some years, she taught English at Lesley University. Her poems have appeared in Ibbetson. Her documentary film Once Upon a Loss: A New Look at Cinderella won a gold apple award from the National Educational Media Network.
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Pegasus 