Vox Populi
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Judith A. Brice: Mourning Calls
From beyond the brume,
beyond the horizon, she swims,
the mallard’s mate,
a wail
for a call, brief before the wait
for her next plaint, shortened and hoarse
From around the cove she floats
into the evening lake, as its restive waves
batter the reeds, tawny and coarse
among the gray, the wind-tossed rocks.
She keens, still mourning—
pleads
Out into the wind she drifts,
her westward whines without hope,
amidst the singe of twilight,
a solitary
slipping of sun, singing
its own vast and disappearing song
Note: This poem was set to music by a Michigan composer, Tony Manfredonia, and then performed by a quintet plus voice by Pittsburgh’s Tuesday Musical Club. Click here to listen to the performance.
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Copyright 2016 Judith Brice. First published in Versewrights. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Judith Brice is a retired Pittsburgh psychiatrist. She is the author of two collections of poems: Renditions in a Palette and Overhead from Longing.
Vox Populi 
So vivid — so beautiful — so sad. She calls for all of us.
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One of the most touching, lyrical poems I’ve read in a while.
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