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Dear Drought

By Amy Beeder b. 1964 Amy Beeder

Offer your usual posy of goatheads. Proffer

sharp garlands of thistle & Incas’ thin down;

of squash bugs strung on blighted stems; send

back necklaced every reeking pearl I crushed,

each egg cluster that I scraped away with knife

or twig or thumbnail. Wake me sweat-laced

from a dream of hidden stables: the gentle foals

atremble, stem-legged, long-neglected. Dear

drought our summer’s corn was overrun again

with weed & cheat; the bitter zinnias fell to bits.

Dear yearlings our harvest is lattice & husk.

Source: Poetry (January 2012).

Biography

A former human rights observer in Haiti and Suriname, and a high school teacher in West Africa, Amy Beeder balances an ear for meter with an often ominous tone, creating a musical, at times mythical, exploration of how we construct beauty and strangeness. Critic Sandra Gilbert declared that Burn the Field (2006) “constitutes an impressive debut for a writer who reveres the heft, texture, and taste of words.”

Writing in the . . .

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