Sher Poetry

Click below to hear about The Light Ekphrastic Journal’s project that brings poets and painters together and hear some background on “Variations on a Blossom” by Sher Schwartz

Variations on a Blossom

	--after Mary Ellen Wade’s acrylic 
		Cherry Blossom Punch (2022)

Varieties of cherries––bride swallows oxheart, blackheart, Tartarian, 
morello. They all taste good rolling toward the back––virginal tongue.

Cherry rum-rum––pickled petals float but some drown,
flutter down––the bottom greets them––bounce-bounce!

Bird-cherry blossoms blow off sideways in the fierce wind. Come fruit. 
Cedar Waxwing (silk-tail) hops––branch to laden branch.

Japanese cherry blossoms––visitors’ smiling faces lift into petal lights,
haloed flowers that don’t bear fruit––travel well but fail to arrive.

A virgin wine waits on a shelf––fragrant petals inside a reddish-brown cabinet, outside a darkling thrush ruffles and sings––her new moon rises.

Fantastic garlands of cherry blossoms and purple monkshood wrap Ophelia’s neck, her ruddy-blooming cheeks fading, hair spread wide, floating down the creek she––

sings a frail old laud––she streams a dying blossom, along with bobbing limes, pumpkins, and bitter cranberries––madness forgets her desire for arctic blue sky.

Punch & Judy strike back and forth again sticks clashing––pinata punctured candy spurts past petals edges of branches––peppered jubilations children shout!

A touch past bee-time––pale pink petals softly reach the donkeys’ backs––raven’s wings throb––moving air sweetening the work animals’ plod to barn.


Quotes from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Inspired by ghazal poetic form.

 Gratitude to The Light Ekphrastic Journal for publishing "Variations on a Blossom."