Vox Populi
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Dawn Potter: Home Burial
The ambulance never showed up at my neighbor’s house,
only a police car,
and after a while a hearse.
I was watering the garden and the pea plants
weren’t thriving. They had a fungus,
which was probably my fault.
But it was too late to save them.
I wonder about the sounds that still linger
in my neighbor’s house—mice scuffling among old
magazines, the click of twigs against a pane.
When I go to bed, I resist sleep for a moment
and watch the lights of passing cars streak
patterns on the walls. Tires hiss on wet pavement
and a train groans through the crossing,
and I pretend I am living in a faraway
city, somewhere in Europe, where doves
coo in the bell towers and a woman in
heels click-clicks over the cobblestones,
walking, walking late into the night.
People are always going away.
~~~
Dawn Potter is the author or editor of ten books of prose and poetry— including the poetry collection Calendar. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, the photographer Thomas Birtwistle.
Copyright 2025 Dawn Potter
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Oh! Such a lovely sad poem.
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Yes, it is. A gentle elegy.
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This poem touches me in so many ways. It always amazes how we can create beauty amidst grief. This poem makes sound and sense interact well. The standalone line at the end turns it into a classic.
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I agree. Dawn’s poems are elegant and moving.
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Of course I adore the nod to Frost in this poem’s title–it drew me right in to this sound-driven image-scape, which is downright cinematic. I’m such a fan of Dawn Potter’s work–here is one of so many reasons why!
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I’m a fan of Dawn’s work as well. Thank you, Meg.
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Thanks for the chance to read this fine poem. Dying at home alone is a way of going away, so are the pea plant with a fungus. Many times we can’t rescue.
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I’m always eager and pleased to read a Dawn Potter poem. She is brilliant, reminds me so much in her thoughts and appearance of my Cousin Meredith, a great artist and writer in Manhattan. They seem to have very similar patterns of thought. I haven’t yet made a study of connexions between this poem (via its title) and Frost’s poem, I suspect one can be made. Dawn is never unintentional about anything.
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Dawn is a master of craft. Everything is perfect in one of her poems.
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Love The clarity of these images and the clear direct syntax. That last two stanzas then lift the poem And it becomes about all of our experiences of loss, distant, or close. I love the sound of those high heels.
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The sound of high heels is a perfect detail, bringing the whole poem together.
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The loneliness emerging from this poem is painful, the sounds almost hide it, but its there.
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Yes, I feel it too in this poem.
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I am particularly drawn to the collection of sounds in this poem, and how they work together to make the under-story, developing the wistfulness, melancholy, the sense of danger that is hinted at. Lovely as always, my friend.
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Thanks, Carlene!
M
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