Ola de primavera and Other Poems

By Rosalie Hendon

Ola de primavera

You run your fingers through my hair,
waves of red-gold shining in the lamplight

Tu pelo es una ola de primavera, you tell me
Your hair looks like a wave of spring

I imagine a woodland carpeted
with hillsides of wildflowers

Digo, ola de otoño
I mean autumn, you correct yourself

It’s endearing to me,
how you always confuse them

Seasons that you never had,
in your equatorial childhood

Night in Kihei

The air was as still as your breath
at the pause between inhale and exhale

Stars flung over inky velvet
We walked side by side on Kihei Road

Moon glittered on the ocean
Plumeria blossoms glowing white

Strategically placed benches
along the beachfront walk

Strangers resolved out of darkness,
headed to the tennis courts

Waves were lapping, the air was soft
We were on the other side of the world

I Meet My Great-Aunt

I met your sister, the one you liked the least
the one who married for money
and lives a superficial, unhappy life.
She looks so like you.
She has your expressions,
your white hair and blue eyes.

In the middle of Michael’s wedding,
slammed back into the fresh loss of you
Mopping up in the bathroom,
with two kind souls who also lost their grandmas.
We talked about the overwhelming now-ness of grief.

“I read a book where the character wishes
she had called her grandma more, and then
I was sobbing at 4 AM–
and my boyfriend asked what happened, what’s wrong–
nothing except I’m SAD.”

“My therapist reminds me that it wouldn’t hurt so much
if there wasn’t so much love there.
So much love.” 

Back outside, I kept staring at her, your blood,
across the dance floor.
Her cap of white waves a beacon,
her thin hands, gesturing

She’s different, of course
Not you, of course
But, oh, what it would be like to see you,
squeeze your hand, hear your voice again

In this chaos, in this desert
it almost seems possible
like those dreams where one person morphs into another,
and you’re in a place you know but have never seen

Rosalie Hendon is an environmental planner living in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and many house plants. She started a virtual poetry group in 2020 during quarantine that has collectively written over 200 poems. Her work is published in Change Seven, Planisphere Q, Call Me [Brackets], Entropy, Pollux, Superpresent, Cactifur, Fleas on the Dog, Red Eft, Rising Phoenix, MockingHeart, Ariel’s Dream, Willawaw, Quarter Press, Wingless Dreamer, Quill Keepers, Calliope, and Write Launch. Rosalie is inspired by ecology, relationships, and stories passed down through generations.