Laura Stamps
Laura Stamps is an award-winning poet and novelist. Over six hundred of her poems, short stories, and poetry book reviews have appeared in literary journals, magazines, anthologies, and broadsides, including the Louisiana Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Big City Lit, Poesy Magazine, American Writing, and the Chiron Review. She is the author of more than twenty-five books and chapbooks, including "Cat Daze (Kittyfeather Press, 2004) and "In the Garden" (The Moon Publishing, 2004). Her latest collection of poetry, "The Year of the Cat" (Artemesia Publishing, 2005), has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Several of her poems are included in the celebrity anthology "Open My Eyes, Open My Soul" (McGraw-Hill Books, 2003) and "Women of the Web Anthology of Poems" (Little Poems Press, 2005). More information about books by Laura Stamps can be found at www.kittyfeatherpress.blogspot.com.
EVER AFTER
If I lived each day as if it were
my last, how eager I would be
to greet the tangerine splash of
sunrise, while slowly inhaling
melon-twists of morning air,
maybe on a spring day like this
dipped in honeysuckle’s lemon
mist. The twigs of life I dashed
by in the past would now gleam
with hidden value: the meadow-
lark teasing the clouds with its
pearled tunes; the sun’s clocked
climb over the garden; and this
cat batting a tissue ball across
the kitchen floor, bouncing,
leaping, kicking his legs like a
bolting bronco, as if every joy
on earth could be found in the
sole crumb of a single moment.
LIGHT EVERLASTING
At daybreak, the sky blushes
as if it were a canvas finger-
smudged with oil sticks:
alizarin crimson, cobalt blue,
burnt sienna. Last week
of February, and the green
tongues of tulips burst through
pine mulch, eager to taste
new life. Wheeling seagulls
shriek and spin, while salmon
blossoms button Lenten
camellias with late winter
jewels. By mid-afternoon,
the day unfolds as clear and
crisp as the pale pulp of a
summer cucumber, and at
evening prayer the horizon
whirls in a watercolor wash
of peach sorbet and sweet-
pea pink: glistening footnotes
etched on the clouds by that
radiant ball of light swimming
across the sky, illuminating
the divinity within us all.
A LESSON IN LIGHT
What could be more joyous
than the sun warming the pale
arms of the mini-blinds at eight
o’clock on a Saturday morning?
Pouring through the big window
at the top of the foyer, splashing
across the stairs to ignite three
onyx cats lounging as if at a
beach, greedily lapping sun-sugar
from fiery fur. No wonder doves
strum dewdrop canticles at dawn,
as ribbons of cloud-shine flex
ivory fingers, and I step from one
revelation of light to the next.
