Mary Ellen Redmond
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Mary Ellen Redmond is an educator for the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District. She loves the challenge of helping children find their writing voices and their work is a source of inspiration. "Voices from Within" is the title of her first chapbook. A common thread throughout her poems is the attempt to capture extraordinary moments in ordinary lives. A published poet, she represented Cape Cod in the 2000 National Poetry Slam Competition in Providence, RI.
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April Quickening
Bleary eyed in the early hour whirl-
wind, running late as usual,
coffeekeys, quick goodbyes,
you paint your buoys,
I sit in my Toyota,
hit the clutch,
turn the ignition,
shift,
press the gas,
turn the wheel,
back up,
as I do every single morning.
And then it happens:
in the time it takes to blink,
as soundless as a crocus bloom,
a grey film lifts from my eyes,
from the bottom to the top,
as if angels tug from above,
a dirty camera lens removed from my eye’s focus.
The car still hums, in reverse,
patiently expecting drive,
while God visits,
and I am mesmerized by color.
Trees, wood, leaves, sky, paint, gravel —
all a richer, deeper hue and
I know right then,
with an unprecedented clarity,
with a slapping certainty,
that after a decade of marriage,
a son born,
a house built,
I have a choice,
and I know
I can leave you.
Just Before
That flash of stillness
right before a flock of swallows lifts and swoops.
That instant – when a brilliant line of poetry vanishes.
Those slippery seconds when waking from a sleep so deep,
you don’t know where you are.
I’m talking about that lapse of time
between the slap and sting;
between seeing the blade slice the skin
and the blood begin to seep.
Have you felt it?
Yes. That moment.
I know it.
Like when I heard my father’s rattled gasp –
right then --
