Bessie Ogilvy Poem by Val Morehouse

Crackle of sun stranded
in blue glass she waits in that
white house so old
her breath haunts the cold
as Bess conducts relatives
along all eighteen doors,
past woodburner parlor logs
and grass someone's kindly
kept in trim. But God Almighty
knows their verdict on winter.

Outdoors Bess names michaelmas
daisies nipped by frost.
Under rednosed maples she departs
paging seasons like a bible,
and beyond the brown skeletons
descend toward her favorite
balsam, green upstart in her
deciduous garden where all
have gone to seed
but it and Bessie Ogilvy.