Penelope Moffet Verse-Virtual 2018 July

July 2018

My friend Jane Culp is a painter who lives in a strawbale house on a patch of high desert land near Anza, CA. We've known each other 30 years. Occasionally pieces of her story find their way into my poems. Often my best work comes from time spent away from my home in the paved-over world of Los Angeles. This poem is part of my second chapbook, It Isn't That They Mean to Kill You, a collection of desert poems due out through Arroyo Seco Press this summer.

The Tree

Every day
there it was
outside the bathroom window
obvious and lovely

Every day
she admired
its glossy leaves
its cloud of creamy flowers

She never brought
her sketchbook in
never lifted paintbrush
only stared

Stranded in a farmhouse
with her once-strong man
who could no longer walk

What she recalls:
a tree that spoke
her failure to reply

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