Viola Weinberg: Two Poems
It's So Easy To Remember | Xing Xing, the Stars

It's So Easy To Remember

Love in the rain, rain coming after
A bad winter's first spring storm—
The pink wet magnolia blossoms
Falling in a heap from a graceful bow

Raincoat-wrapped lovers washed by
Sheets of water the color of sugar tea
Saturate on the throat of stout oxford cotton—
A button-down shirt that smelled of indoor drying

O, indelible pastel happiness, you are
An easy memory so dazzling a wave
Oceans of you, a surge caught forever
Froze in mid-swell at the heart's red curl

Inhale the pink wet magnolias again
Those blossoms now years old and long
Ago decomposed, given way to greener grass
And the thrill of a lost kiss as if it had never gone missing

Xing Xing, the Stars

It is the dark of night in this lost village
I rise against you, a flag of flesh on your hand
The sky is moaning, nothing looks the same

Xing, Xing, the stars beam down on us
Dangling white lights on beautiful ribbons
Pinned to the small whiff of clouds

Caught in the Chinese tallow tree
Xing Xing, the stars come down to us
Guiding our every move, providing light

As we bravely sail our ship above
An ignorant river of darkness
That only luminous love can light

Xing Xing, the stars
Have put your lips to mine
In the watermarked taffeta sky

On the silk barge of the bed
Lit up by Xing Xing the stars that
Have brought us back from the dead

To love again on a moonless night
For life's energy and inevitability
Drinking and breathing Xing Xing, the stars

Poet's Biography:

Viola Weinberg is the first appointed Poet Laureate of Sacramento, the capitol city of California. She works as a consultant to private foundations with a specialty in First Amendment issues and the environment. Weinberg is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards for her writing including The Award for the Arts, the highest award given to Northern California artists. In 1996, she was short listed for the Thomas Wolfe Award for fiction for her short story, "Lorenzo's Story". Her work has been included in anthologies by Faber & Faber, Boston & London (Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend: Women on Baseball and Ladies Start Your Engines: Women on Cars and the Open Road.) She has three published books of poetry. Baseball Secrets of Cuttlefish & Spike, her performance piece about desperate love and the nation's pastime, will debut in May. A new poetry collection, Natural Magic, is also underway.