The Green Season
O sweet morning–
coffee on the patio,
the Sunday Times
spread between us,
red geraniums
in the window box,
a dog at your feet.
Stop, Love. Don’t move.
Don’t even breathe.
I wish us fixed
this way, cups raised
the green season before us.
© Donna Hilbert, 2009 & 2011
This poem is used with permission and appears in The Green Season by Donna Hilbert (World Parade Books, 2011)
Donna Hilbert was born in the Red River Valley of Oklahoma near the Texas border but has spent most of her life in Southern California. She is a graduate of Califonia State University, Long Beach. This poem is taken from her book of the same name (the second edition of The Green Season, was pusblished by World Parade Books in 2011).
Other books include Traveler in Paradise: New and Selected Poems, PEARL Editions, 2004 Transforming Matter, PEARL 2000, Feathers and Dust, Deep Red and Mansions, all from Event Horizon Press. In 1994 she won the Staple First Edition writing award resulting in the publication in England of the short story collection, Women who Make Money and the Men Who Love Them. Her Greatest Hits chapbook, which includes her most anthologized poems from 1989-2000, is available from Pudding House Press. She has often traveled to England to give readings and workshops and has served as Vice President for Programs of PEN Center USA West. Her work is the subject of the short film “Grief Becomes Me,” by director Christine Fugate, which was shown as a work-in-progress at the Kentucky Women Writer’s Conference in March of 2005, and is included in the now completed Grief Becomes Me: A Love Story, the documentary about her life and work. She is listed in the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry. A new collection of poetry, The Congress of Luminous Bodies, is forthcoming from Aortic Books.
Two more things about Donna. She recently had a poem titled “The Angel Garmin” on the YourDailyPoem site. Second, she would love for you to attend an upcoming poetry festival in Long Beach, CA. It is called Beside the City of Angels and will take place Saturday, October 13. Wanda Coleman is among the more than 20 poets on hand, and the event is free.