I'm a Lilac, Too: A Poem

Concede the point. I’m not a lilac lilac.
I lack that cope of mauve upon my back.
The tulip calls her plum-cheeked colleague forth
And cries, “Arise, O Lavender-of-the-North,”
While she, in purple plush, will wink and nod,
Incline her curls at me and name me: “Fraud.”
A blot, a blank, a blah—you must concur—
A lump of floral wool without allure.
I’m soapsuds. Chalk. Coquilles Saint-Jacques.
I’m cream, I’m milk, not orchid silk.

She’s cinnamon and eyelashes and lace.
I’m nutmeg. I am freckles on your face.
She’s frankincense, but I am merely beeswax.
She’s luscious adjectives. And me? Just syntax.
She’s garnets glinting from a diadem,
Musetta shrieking woe in La Bohème.
I’m icicles in fractals down a fjord,
The Goldberg Variations’ harpsichord.
I lack her flair. But why compare?
I am just me: a lilac tree.

I'm a Lilac, Too

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

(Words and photo by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.)

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem: An Ekphrastic Poem

What was the point of knowing it all?
What was the good of foreseeing the fall?

Why sermons?
Why warnings?
Why prophetic cant?
Such ire?
Such anguish?
Such heartrending rant?

You gave me the words,
but you gave them no ears.
They quaffed their scoffing,
I ate my fears.

You drove me to drive them to turn and repent
when you knew that regardless you wouldn’t relent
so frankly I tell you how much I resent
the years I have wasted, the life I have spent
for nothing!

Who changes a changeless decree,
or heart made of stone?
You maybe,
not me.
Yet I was the one who carried the word
that you knew all along would never be heard.

Let Jonah complain of his frivolous part
in changing the changeable Ninevite heart
while you scheduled mercy right from the start.
At least he did something!

But I, not a whit,
left to rot in a pit,
while they slander and spit.
This is it —
AND I QUIT!

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

(Words by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. Painting by Rembrandt.)

Grocery List: A Poem

Apples, bagels, milk, and macaroni,
Froot Loops, canned soups, half pound of baloney,
Yogurt, cheese Squirt, Knox unflavored gelatin,
Doughnuts, cold cuts, box of Flintstone vitamins,
Chuck steak, pound cake, zucchini, summer squash,
Cloves, thyme, lemon, lime, bourbon, tonic, scotch,
Tofu, honeydew, flounder to feed six,
Artichokes, diet Cokes, peanuts, pretzel sticks,
Tater tots, German brats, cherries (black or bing?),
Blue cheese, fresh peas, I think that’s everything.

Grocery List

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

(Words and photo by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. I wrote this poem ages ago, but only just realized it must mean I’ve always been fascinated by trochaic meter.)