Kathleen Granchelli began her career teaching English at the high-school and freshman-college levels. Following a move to Greece to explore the culture, she returned to the U.S. where she transitioned to a career in communications and community relations for a not-for-profit R&D organization. She led the organization’s communications and community relations functions while serving over the years on a number of civic/business/educational partnerships and boards. She is a member of the Academy of American Poets, New England Poetry Association and Worcester County Poetry Association. She lives in Massachusetts, U.S.A. with her husband David Granchelli.
after Minoan “Spring” fresco, Akrotiri, Greece
From the hall in the house,
if you peer into the sanctuary
a pair of painted swallows first you’ll see,
unflappable in mid-air
their fantastical anatomies stilled
before one another
tiny beaks open to feed, sing or cry
at the darkness to come;
a tryptich adorns three walls,
over first landscape beyond caves:
seven swallows fly among lillies as
crimson blooms sway over craggy cliffs
until Thira blew, leaving pumice and ash
to bury the once blessed land.
Meditation on the Pomegranate
Red-purple is the berry with seeds
numbering 200-to-1200, unless, like me,
you think the range too inexact and that
the ancient Jews called it right at 613,
each seed a commandment of the Torah.
Some scholars propose the pomegranate
as the forbidden fruit of Eden,
given it’s indigenous to the region
and given the etymology of the thing,
granatum pomum, meaning seeded apple.
Consider poor Persephone! Abducted by spitfire Hades,
bound as his consort after eating six seeds
until god fights release her six months every year.
She sprinkles Spring over middle earth,
blossoming pomegranate trees.
Once in Greece on New Year’s Eve,
my friend’s mother called us to the foyer at midnight—
she raised a perfect Peloponnese pomegranate
and smashed it to the floor. The seeds scattered
over the marble, juice running in rivulets
into future abundances for her daughter.
For other contributions by Kathleen Granchelli, please follow the link below:
Poetry in this post: © Kathleen Granchelli
Published with the permission of Kathleen Granchelli