June throbs with life. As I write, a mother robin feeds her gaping, zesty newborns in the nest she’s built on my window sill. On the farm, too, new life abounds in orchard, garden, pond, and wood. And wending amid these fresh beginnings are piquant memories of past joys, past dreams, past rites, past Junes,

A Widow’s Tale

by Moira Linehan

Across the pond, twenty chairs for a wedding.

Mine, ever in mind. Later today, a June wedding

on the pond’s other side. The sky, something blue

for the bride. One frothy cloud. Their vows will wed

the couple now forever to this pond. A Great Blue

drifts down over it in time to a wedding

march. Deliberately sure. The wings’ cold blue

undersides almost skim the water. Our wedding

in a stone chapel in winter. Then brilliant blue

the next morning’s sky as we skated. We, too, wedded

to a pond, the one behind our home. Dan hummed The Blue

Danube Waltz to me. With this ring I thee wed.

When I took it off, I broke out in hives. My great blue.

I wore it for another year. My art of being wed,

the art of memory. A second Great Blue

arrives. Last month I moved from our pond. My wedded

imprinted world has come with me. The two Great Blues

fly off together. Later today, a small wedding.

Moira Linehan had two collections of poetry come out in 2020: TOWARD from Slant Books and & COMPANY from Dos Madres Press. She has two earlier books: IF NO MOON (2007) and INCARNATE GRACE (2015), both from Southern Illinois University Press. “A Widow’s Tale” first appeared in the Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio Plein Air chapbook, Memoir.