Cockeyed Bounty
(with apologies to Hopkins)
All I’ve got is gratitude for front yard things:
For lawn signs long-since pointless, sulking somehow;
For begonias ranged in bathtubs upon feet with claws;
Little Libraries’ insistent gifts; lop-sided swings;
Rainbows fluttering; pepper lights on a bough;
And small shrines, their buddhas, birds, and paws.
All things extra, outlandish, ersatz, real,
Whatever is human, expressive (especially now),
What’s cheeky, chimed; trippy, trash; normal, gnome—
Things flourish-forth from lockdowns to reveal:
Who’s home.
Mia Schilling Grogan teaches at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Presence, The Windhover, and First Things.