Awards for Poems by Maurice L. Hirsch, Jr.

Honorable Mention - 2008 Deanne Wagner Poetry Contest - St. Louis Writers Guild

Little Things

When You Move Away

1. Anna

I’ll pick raspberries alone,

won’t have you

on my lap steering the tractor,

riding Rosie while I watch,

picking though the cereal box

for the one shape you like.

You won’t be dancing down our hall trailing scarves,

playing with rubber ducks in our bath,

spending the night on our living-room couch.

Your great-grandfather’s four-legged cane

will give up its life as a microphone.

Pooh Bear will grow old, disappear.

2. Jake

Horseopoly will stay in its box

along with Quiddler and Five Crowns.

I won’t see the next math skill

you’ve taught yourself.

I won’t hear a new song

on your recorder,

see your new sports spreadsheet,

have wagon wheel noodles

on my shopping list.

I won’t have you hug me

taller by fractions, won’t be there

when you give up

that last baby-blanket scrap

you hold in your sleep.

Honorable Mention - Missouri Writers Guild 2007 Winter Writing Contest

(Also published in Untamed Ink, Volume I, Spring 2008)

Death of the Maple

Kevin put one hand on bare wood,
the other on discolored bark.
“It’s dying a slow death.
Nothing is moving up or down:
food,
water,
nothing.
Like terminal arterial sclerosis.”

He pointed at a big girdling root
that has driven itself
through the tree’s heart,
sealing its fate.
We looked up at leaves
thinning like a chemo patient’s hair.
Kevin tore off a big piece
of red- and yellow-striped plastic ribbon,
tied it around the trunk –
a notice of extinction,
euthanasia.
A small branch fell by his feet.

Today, two men with ropes and chainsaws
dismember the tree from its crown to the ground.
Their chipper’s diesel whine
drowns out any final moans
as it grinds everything
from twigs to huge hunks,
spews a stream of shredded bones.

The men rake, sweep, leave only
wet sawdust, skeletal roots,
a ringed vestige of the stump
as flat grave marker,
morning sun where there used to be shade,
a small scrap of striped ribbon.

Honorable Mention – 2006 James H. Nash Poetry Contest – St. Louis Poetry Center

Taking Stock

Just-cut hay will arrive at dusk.

I look at the uneven pile

of sun-bleached brown bales

left over from past years.

Each has its own character:

leafy legume,

wispy thin grass,

coarse with tough yellow stems.

Tan outsides hide muted green within.

The bottom layer smells faintly of mold

where it meets concrete.

I move 50-pound bundles by their red or tan twine,

willy-nilly at first, fumbling

for a plan. I find

mounds of loose hay,

nests my dogs built in winter

to sleep away gray daylight hours.

There is part of an old glove,

just the red lining, that disappeared

one cold day Minnie was bored.

I come back about sunset.

Fifty feet away I can smell

the thick scent of alfalfa and timothy

that was still connected to the earth

four days ago. I inhale the fragrance

that will fade along with the grass-green façade,

like a collection of memories

covered by the dust of time,

till you dig deep into the stack.

First Prize – 2006 Deanne Wagner Poetry Contest – St. Louis Writers Guild

Sin/Agog

Magnificent and opulent,

the Cathedral of Toledo

stuns not only by normal

abnormal amounts of gold, jewels,

treasure. Its interior is transformed

by warm sunbeams through a sculptured,

frescoed skylight—the Transparente,

ascension from Earth to heaven and back. A column

of sunlight moves amidst the shadows,

enchants and enthralls with shifting

patterns of color and shade. Alabaster

angels ignite in their Baroque

jumble of marble and gold. At noon,

the altar is ablaze.

At the end of the plaza sits the anomalous

Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca,

a cast-off hull,

stripped, stark, and bare,

tourist stop, synagogue in name only.

Chair-less, empty, with walls of faded frescoes,

you can smell its poverty.

I am transfigured

in its shadows.

Second Prize – 2006 Deanne Wagner Poetry Contest – St. Louis Writers Guild

Shuttered

You held my eyes as firmly

as you grasped my hand, established

kinship beyond blood, intimacy without words.

I sat in your house, leaned on your strength.

Now, your good hand grasps the bedrail, tubes drip

liquids in, out. I can’t find a way to cross your threshold,

know if you’re there.

Dusty panes obscure glimpses,

sills seem painted shut, doorknobs spin

without unlatching, I am left with messages

over the night’s air, eyes-closed

images that expose your heart.

Often I hope you are not at home,

have left,

will not

come back.