In the Right Season
by Diane Sher Lutovich
“We hardly know how we will meet our last days, but in these poems,
Diane Lutovich provides as clear a model as one could hope for. ”
—
Margaret Kaufman, author of Snake at the
Wrist
“In these poems, written during the last year and a half of her life,
Diane Lutovich performs the most difficult of human tasks: balancing hope
and acceptance. Without pity or despair, she looks closely at the world
she loves.”
— Carolyn Miller, author of After Cocteau
DIANE SHER LUTOVICH, a writer and teacher of writing, was a native of Hibbing, Minnesota. She passed away on June 2, 2004, after having fought a long and tenacious battle with cancer.
Diane Sher Lutovich's poetry has received several awards and has appeared in a number of reviews and anthologies. She is the author of Nobody's Child: How Older Women Say Good-bye to Their Mothers, published by Baywood Press.
POEMS FROM In the Right Season
It’s About Time
Today I want to invite the dead in,
show them to a well-padded
chair,
offer a cup of chamomile tea, finally
ready to listen to
them talk
about pain, narrowing of the spirit.
When they were dying,
each of my joints was a well-lubed machine
part,
stomach ready for chocolate malts, stuffed peppers,
martinis,
fried calamari, coffee as thick as sand.
Today, we could discuss levels of pain.
Now I inhabit the body of
the stricken,
maybe temporarily,
maybe not.
“Here, I’ ll turn up the heat,
lower the shade against the
too-bright sun,
bring a down pillow for your neck.”
Instead of
turning away from their decay
I’ d kiss each one of their
pale,
sinking cheeks and tell them,
“I know. ”
Power of the Ephemeral
Shadows from the oak branches
scuff across the deck, always
in
motion like a parade or army.
Lacking in color and substance,
they
engage the fence and tremble
like fingers exploring a body.
They
could be a tongue of flame,
exchanging heat for cool
afternoon
breeze, but they
hold the eye, even more than
the oak trees
themselves only
yards away—because, I think,
they are
untrustworthy,
unsubstantial. Something
to deceive and hold
you
while the real action goes on
somewhere else.
