To Dorothy Wordsworth
by Andrea Potos

You found the lone strawberry flower
hidden under the hedge,
heard the far-off becks and falls,
the voice of water in wind.
By moonlight you planted lemon thyme.

Helm Crag, you wrote:
rose very bold … a being by itself.
Once, you called yourself more than half a poet.

Weren’t you the first to tell
of the daffodils tossing and reeling,
the single leaf like a windblown rag?

Though you gladly let fame
crown your brother, beloved brother
who worshipped celestial light on earth.
You baked his bread, prepared supper,
tea for the two of you and Coleridge;

you listened for his tread
upon the evening path, as he
must have waited for the glimpses
from the shooting lights of your wild eyes.


(published in We Lit the Lamps Ourselves, Salmon Poetry)



 

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