Snapshot        

by Kari Gunter-Seymour


No exaggeration, an entire field filled—
daffodils, golden heads bobbing. Took her years
to divide and transplant the bulbs, gently
scooping under each clump, every nub a new life,
fragrant, a mingling of earth’s brine
and spice, the way a newborn smells.
 
Bronzed and shapely, she’d planted
herself midway, one casually laced boot  
in front of the other, morning sun defining
her contours. When she lifted her arms,
cowbirds took to the sky like nymphs
of cool breezes and she their Terra Gaia. 

I framed the photo, pearls of sweat
frosting her upper lip, but not before
she wrote near the bottom
in careful cursive—
Below my feet my child sleeps.


* * * * *

"Snapshot" is part of Kari Gunter-Seymour's poetry collection Alone in the House of My Heart.

Kari Gunter-Seymour is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and a 2021 Academy of American Poets laureate Fellow. Her poetry collections include Alone in the House of My Heart (2022), A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (2020), and Dirt Songs (2024). Her work has been featured on Verse Daily, World Literature Today, the New York Times and Poem-a-Day.