Antelope, hunters –
ancient cave wall
drawings of charcoal,
red and green ochre.
Pyramids, great walls,
cathedrals, castles,
backyard sheds
and arbors.
Plantings, sprouts, orchids,
conservatories,
vegetable gardens,
giant sequoias.
Carefully crafted words,
handed down
on paper, digitally, told,
retold.
Songs of minstrels, choirs,
street performers,
operas, recorded, played
back, improvised.
Piecing together
mosaics, quilts.
Threading embroidery,
tapestries.
Kiss joined to kiss.
Ring slid on finger.
Celebrations and photos
from every angle.
Memories remembered,
restored. Stories
told, retold. The need
not to be forgotten.
Philip Wexler lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is retired after a long career at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Some 200 of his poems have appeared in magazines. His poetry books include The Sad Parade (prose poems), and The Burning Moustache, both published by Adelaide Books, The Lesser Light by Finishing Line Press, With Something Like Hope (Silver Bow Publishing) and I Would be the Purple (Kelsay Books), the latter 3 all published in 2022. He also organizes and hosts Words out Loud, a monthly spoken word series convened in-person at the Friends of the Library of Montgomery County (FOLMC) bookstore in Rockville, Maryland and remotely via Zoom.
