Presence

Poetry offers a unique medium for embodying an experience or an individual in an image.

Namesake

The leaves of the geranium I named
for her are curled up like her hands
the night of her heart attack, a sign,
the nurse said, she was giving up.
But she let death go that time.

So this geranium, four years ago
all leaves when I invoked
her spirit on its behalf, scared
if nothing changed, eternity
might also have its boundaries,

shortly flowered in such abundance
friends noticed.  Now these stiffened stems
look past treatment as usual,
at risk to prove her here in a flower,
performing for joy in the world.

​Neva Herrington

Her BMW and Other Poems ( Columbus: Pudding House Publications, 2007)
Included in: Open Season (Cincinnati: David Robert Books, 2015)
and Among the Absent (Georgetown: Finishing Line Press , 2019)