Some Things I Want To Remember Before Burning - Danielle Bryant

[Larry Robinson]

Some Things I Want to Remember Before Burning

Maybe its silly to think of
Venice in those tiny cordial cups
one red one gold like the fire
of one love before it burned out
the old ceramic bowl that sang
when you turned it with your fingers
and the time we fought
over its purchase and purpose
5 skulls in porcelain, differing in heights
each with visions scrawled on their backs
and one with a penis we never used
The House That Holds The Sparrows Nest I heard singing
framed in tonal monotype
but I never saw the bird,
Fly Fly Away painted on a long rectangle
in abstract red pink blue & white
stunned every time over conversation
and how it was won,
a hot orange dish brimmed
with many places I called home
rocks crystals and minerals
from long desert roads and unbroken shores of water,
in the guest room images of a barn, an icy lake
and a molten candle dimly illuminating fruit,
prim apples and the incandescent skin of grapes
each painted with grandmother’s careful hands
her old car parked in faded yellow and rusted
near the periwinkle hydrangea blooming full
all in graphite pencil

These many things of personal history
now a finality of ash,
somehow are rebuilt into time
burnt in the mind and somehow
indelibly, they carry on.

     -  Danielle Bryant




"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."
   - Wendell Berry