Pensive Journal Logo
Issue 4
Download Issue 4
Poetry

Silver-Tipped Japanese Grass

Patricia Clark

Pale wheat-colored froth of seed heads
spoke to me as I walked past—
“Please do not worry,” they said.

“Let the weight
bend you over. There will be a time
for rising. Not today.”

I vowed to watch the grasses
through winter days ahead,

noticing how they held on despite
snow and ice, to celebrate

in wind and rain how they flexed,
were jostled and battered, but stayed.
An ice storm bent them flat.

When ice melts, stems and seed heads rising
again, I let wind touch my cheek.
My skin tender, it yields.

Not sculpted from stone, or ice
I join with the grasses.

Patricia Clark

Patricia Clark is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars (2021, Terrapin Books). New work is out (or forthcoming) in Plume, Westchester Review, I-70 Review, Tar River Poetry, Paterson Literary Review and others. She recently retired from thirty years teaching creative writing, English, and writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

Patricia Clark
Patricia Clark is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars (2021, Terrapin Books). New work is out (or forthcoming) in Plume, Westchester Review, I-70 Review, Tar River Poetry, Paterson Literary Review and others. She recently retired from thirty years teaching creative writing, English, and writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
Next
Higher than the Hills