2 poems
by Ansie Baird
Ansie Baird taught for forty years at The Buffalo Seminary, is a former editor for Earth's Daughters, has taught for Just Buffalo in their Writers In Education program, and participated in the Albright-Knox collaborative entitled: A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words. Her work has been published a number of times in The Paris Review, as well as in The Southern Review, The Denver Quarterly, The Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, New Ohio Review and a number of other journals. Her book, In Advance Of All Parting, won the White Pine Press national poetry competition and was published by White Pine Press in 2009. In September of 2016, her second full-length collection of poems, The Solace of Islands, was published by BlazeVOX Press. In addition, in 2016, she was one of four poets included in Outriders Press book entitled Four Buffalo Poets. Her latest collection, entitled Porch Watch, is being published by The Foundling Press in May of 2019.
RESPONSE
to "The Call"
by George Herbert
Come and change my calloused heart.
Such a heart grown callous by departures.
It's safer not to count on
Glory in your radiance.
But come when you are so inclined.
We your sheep haphazard scatter and
Occasionally return, trying to believe
Returning will not kill us.
Yes, come if you feel like it.
I won't be keeping track.
From time to time you seem near.
Other times I guess you turn away.
Ah, don't bother to come. We're doing okay.
Just straggling along. Perhaps
Your not coming is what makes us strong.
DOOR BELL
If it couldn't be you
it must be the King
It couldn't be you
because you're tangled
in thickets and brambles
and ditches one after
another or clutched
in the tops of trees
it cannot be true
it couldn't be you
whose big heart
checked out
after too many years
to count
if truth be told
you weren't even old
unless some damn fool
declares seventy five
is plenty of being alive
Not me I counted
on you to keep
climbing the stair
to my tower forever
no time to spare
at least eleven more
years you'd be there
Now when footsteps
sound in the hall
coming near
I kid myself
perhaps he is here
but then when I hear
brisk knocks on the door
not the way I used to before
I know in my heart it
couldn't be you so
when I hear the bell ring
it must be the King