A Muse Bouche

Hi there! Please check out my Pages, About, Calendar, Books, etc., right up there in the header for more info, and thanks for checking in. Too many other projects bubbling at the moment including at DMQ Review, but I appreciate your interest and support.

And I hope all is well with you and yours.

In the meantime, here’s a poem of mine that is featured in the Syracuse Cultural Worker’s Women Artists 2021 Datebook. Check out their website for more cool products.

Winter Train to Dublin

And sometimes I want to draw the landscape
not write about it, but the train rolls forward
past a field of white geese nestled deep in green,
the sun at quarter sky all day like a cigarette hole
burned in gray flannel. Someone once said
write stories that make a difference. Sheep
graze in a churchyard, then a Union Jack
flying over a roof. What needs saying?

A young man leaves the train. An older man
takes his place. This is the story of living.
Station to station we ride as far as the ticket
takes us. The view changes. So too
our fellow passengers. Some will talk,
others nod into their collars. The older man
unwraps a ham sandwich taken from his pocket,
reads his newspaper, folds up the trash.

We turn inland. A train Belfast bound
cries to the wind. The man gathers himself, stands.
Slips on his coat. Maybe this is the story: we keep
him alive here—his unfinished crossword puzzle,
tan eyeglass case, red rucksack, even the bandaid
wrapped around the tip of one finger—traveling
alone on the first day of a new year, at the door
for his station, wire-rimmed glasses agleam.

yrz,
Sally Ashton