Amy Barone


Bryn Mawr

I recall its light streaming
through the kitchen window,
white sheer drapes fluttering in a breeze.

I still wear the glow of a town 
with a strange name 
and settled by the Welsh.

A life-giving, life-suctioning 
tree-rich locale that once welcomed 
vacationers fleeing the heat of Philadelphia. 

I set anchor in other places 
but relish the radiance
that sustained youthful hope.

Haven from storms, where I return 
to speak to ghosts and trees.



Iced

Late winter’s trees
are no longer barren
this morning, but bejeweled 

with ice crystals
after a night of noisy rain
that disrupted my sleep.

A state of beauty and danger
keeps me in, a gift 
I welcome on a gray 

windy day where 
war fills blue screens.



Blue Fields

I find forsythia and bluebells sprouting near home, 
far from local and global strife that’s churning nerves.

In a nature preserve close by, across four miles,
spicebush, toadshades, and yellow lady’s slippers
blanket warming grounds, alongside
creeping Jacob’s ladders and shooting stars.

In the bluebonnet state of Texas, a festival in Ennis 
celebrates 40 miles of wildflowers in fields of blue—
winecups, black-eyed Susans, and Indian paintbrush.

Along 500,000 acres in Tennessee, fire pinks, 
bleeding hearts, and jack-in-the-pulpits
join trillium, columbines and dwarf crested irises

to form a natural monument, an oasis of peace.

Amy Barone’s poetry collection, Defying Extinction, was published by Broadstone Books in 2022. New York Quarterly Books published her book, We Became Summer. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing.) Barone belongs to the Poetry Society of America. She lives in New York City.

 
 

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