-
Listen to Ellen reciting poetry.
Jam Today
“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today.” White Queen to Alice, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll.
Last season’s
peach and gooseberry
sweet-tart on the tongue
spread on toast, muffins,
bagel with raisins
and cinnamon –
spice of the sabbath
now her body is jamming
itself, cells stuck and clogged
blocking the vital
spring again
flowers jam in the garden,
jazz musicians gone wild,
cacophony of tulips
trill of daffodil
violin tones of violets
and weeping redbud,
one gooseberry bush
bursting into flower
soft fruit
longing
to be picked.
Ellen S. Jaffe, 2016
for Sharon H. Nelson (2 January 1948 – 12 June 2016)
published in Persimmon Tree, Summer 2017
http://www.persimmontree.org/v2/summer-2017/international-poets/-
Recent Posts
- Written on the Body #33, March 8, 2021: International Women’s Day
- Written on the Body, #32, March 6, 2021: Some Uncertainty Resolved, Celebrating Black History, and Some Good Points for Uncertainty
- Written on the Body #31, Feb. 17, 2021: Hope and Uncertainty
- Written on the Body, #30: January 18, 2021, The Winter of Discontent
- Written on the Body, #29: December 24, 2020: Light Returns
Recent Comments
- Lauren Burke on Written on the Body #23 August 10, 2020: The Incredible Shrinking….
- Joanne Traum Raffel on Biography
- Ruth Zilkha on Written On the Body 13, Nov. 24, 2019: Beautiful British Columbia
- Ruth Zilkha on Written On the Body 13, Nov. 24, 2019: Beautiful British Columbia
- Suzanne Foreman on Written on the Body, #15: January 12, 2020 — Welcome to the New Decade
Monthly Archives: October 2020
Written On the Body #27, October 28, 2020 — The Uncertainty Principle
In physics, the uncertainty principle — articulated by Werner Heisenberg — states that we can know how fast something is going OR its exact location now, but NOT both at the same time. mataphorically, the uncertainty principle applies to all … continue reading
Written on the Body, #26, October 6, 2020 — Another Poem
I’m writing this soon after the previous post, but I want to share a wonderful reason to be thankful this (Canadian) Thanksgiving. I saw my oncologist this morning, and he is very pleased with the progress I am making with … continue reading
Written on the Body #25, October 2, 2020 — Poem for the Times
We have passed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and two harvest festivals are approaching: Sukkot, the Jewish festival, on Oct. 2-4, and Thanksgiving in Canada on Oct. 12. With the planet in such chaos from wildfires, hurricanes, extinctions of … continue reading