Endlessness

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
I have never been tired of myself,
scared of myself, yes, worried
that I'm only a shell of original skin
and bones and blood, yes, but tired
or bored, no. I have a trunk of stories,
an infinite series of scenes
to sift through, the way I did
in my mother's sewing room, so many
small boxes to open, fabrics to touch,
her heavy pinking shears to make
the perfect zigzag line. That small room
smelled like hot cotton. There were no wrinkles
my mother couldn't smooth. Those metal hangers
making wind chime music as they waited for a shirt
or a skirt in front of an open window.
That ironing board where my sister and I
ironed each other's long hair. So much made
in a small space, a womb, its darkness for magic,
the seeds becoming a surprising garden.
How can anyone get tired of living?
All of us in our own version of The House
on Mango Street or The Odyssey or The God
of Small Things with paths to follow, people to find,
gods to implore. Look right there: three crows
at the tippy top of the naked tree—shadow angels
who might have a message for me.


* * * * *

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com

There I Am

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
Walking on the leaf littered eternity
of Central Avenue, the queen of my neighborhood
past one stone castle & that Victorian house
where I first watched The Wizard of Oz
on the only color TV on that street.
I sat under a side table holding hands
with Nancy, those flying monkeys still wildfire
in my heart, & didn't one doctor say I had a heart
murmur & don't I often hear the murmur
of what I can't name. How close we all were
to the manatees in the clear water,
one looking me in the eye.
Nothing is hard to love up close.
I don't need a guidebook, but I've had to
dust off my report cards and the stacks of black
& white scalloped-edged photographs
uncover some code of dots and dashes
I didn't hear. I’m a detective now.
No longer the luckiest one.
There must be a trail & stone cairns.
My strong legs when my father asked me
to carry his backpack, My knees, he said.
It was heavy, yes, but I carried it all the way down.
That was another year that I was born.
I miss the swell of twilight, running home
and knowing dinner would be ready soon.


* * * * *
 
Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com

 

For the Women

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
Fear rolling over a voice can eclipse
the truth wanting out. Some of us find
the way back by expanding our ribs
as Eve did. How she cleared her clouded
throat, opened her mouth, and spoke.
She saw no apparitions, of course.
There were no spirits yet, only raccoons,
wolves, the winged in her world,
that rock where she sat and decided.
The smoothness of its surface—
it could be a museum piece:
Here is where the first woman
watched a world unfold
and became hungry.


* * * * *

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com

 

If the Voice is There, You Can't Ignore Her

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
She keeps returning
like a jewel you thought you saw
in the grass or just after a step along
a shell-laden beach. She is a pleasant rumbling
in the wild blue sky when there are no clouds.
Here she is, brilliant and alive, now wanting
to thank the Maker, wants to write about
that stay in the garden, albeit brief, how
once it felt like gold or a space of grace.
She begins to dictate: “Start Dear Maker,
thank you for Your green world, how thick and perfect
the air there.” And how did she know
to write thank-you notes
without a mother reminding her?
 

* * * * *

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com

At the End

by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

 
We turn and dream
into another exile—
bonfires, possums,
and snake-killing.
Nothing dies slowly
in dreams,
it's fold after fold
of some inscrutable map
or bobbing in a wooden skiff
on mysterious waters.
What are we finding there,
what particle of us
do we return with?
I dreamt the pharmacist
at CVS was my doctor
and she said, The baby is crowning.
How royal we are
in our dreams.
Then I was waving
from a car in a huge parade
of tickertape and celebration
for all those years
I lived.


* * * * *

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has four poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), With a Polaroid Camera (2019), and Now These Three Remain (2023). Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and Pushcart Prizes. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com