Written in September 2005
Image: “The Pink Rose,” by Alice B. Clagett, ca. 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0
Image: “The Pink Rose,” by Alice B. Clagett, ca. 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0
TO CATCH A SALAMANDER
A Poem by Alice B. Clagett
September 2005
This is a poem about a time
when I was taking care of my mom
during the last seven years of her life.
As an empath, I could feel her sense of
disorientation in the evenings.
This is about the first time that happened.
Like a sparrow
. . . with a broken wing
My mother fell
. . . into a pool
. . . . . . . . . . . . of madness
And I
. . . . . . fell in too.
It was our first time there,
. . . in those sad haunts.
She didn’t like it much,
. . . and so we surfaced
. . . . . . soon
to grasp the day
like a child
. . . turning over
. . . . . . a rotten log
to catch a salamander
……….
Alice B. Clagett
Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..
