Lois Bender
Poem for the Grieving
There is no redemption here, only rust,
seeing my face reflect off the gray of the day,
the stillness of all who have touched the bottom before me—
how many bodies have gone down to be reborn?
Water too cold to swim in,
we all wade out way too far.
A single swan ignoring the warning,
a shiver as the summer strays to fall.
Visiting the bay graves each morning,
my father walks the wet cemetery alone.
Days and days of no rain,
he drags a jug heavy with sorrow.
My mother is buried nowhere.
There are no flowers left to water.
Green reeds long browning along the edges—
the summer sky opens up orange.
Nicole Tallman (she/her) is the Poetry Ambassador for Miami-Dade County, Associate Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal and Interviews Editor for The Blue Mountain Review. Her debut chapbook, Something Kindred, is forthcoming from The Southern Collective Experience (SCE) Press. Find her latest poems in Wrongdoing Magazine, trampset, The Hallowzine, Sledgehammer Lit, Not Deer Magazine, and warning lines. Find her on Instagram and Twitter @natallman and at nicoletallman.com.
Lois Bender, a long time New Yorker, combines her background in art direction and graphic design with personal expression in drawing, watercolor, photography, and printmaking creating a fresh synthesis of styles. Her art illustration brand GardenSpiritsNY Designs grew out of her Retail Gift Industry experience and her love of nature. Bender’s art practice has explored nature themes in gardens at residencies in France and The Hamptons, NY, as well as at Skowhegan and the Women’s Studio Workshop. With a B.A. from Hunter College, NY and an MFA from Boston University, she teaches art and watercolor techniques and exhibits her work in the Metro NY area. She is an Art Professor at Essex County College in Newark, NJ and has an art studio in Manhattan. She is an urban and garden sketcher who celebrates nature in all its poetic and ephemeral expressions.