Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. This week’s segment features Susan Schubert.
Schubert is a member of A-Town Poetics in Aurora. She is a published author with two memoirs available on Amazon. They are “The Way I Remember It: A Memoir of a Trip to Europe 1971” and “My Place of Dreams: A Love Story.”
Schubert has won accolades for her short stories and photographs.
Some of her poems are published in the Kane County Chronicle newspaper and anthologies by Fox Valley Writers. Her poem “Aurora” is on a mural in downtown Aurora.
Schubert lives in St. Charles, Illinois and sings in a jazz trio around the area. Today her poem shows the different perspectives of the color “Red.”
I see it Over there
It’s in the trees
Beyond the snow.
It’s red.
Bright in the winter sun
Takes my eyes away
From the dull white blanket
The black trees , silhouettes.
The red , it moves
From branch to branch,
Singing a wintry song.
Must be cold up there,
That cardinal.
How does it make it
in the deep coldness
Here, in the middle of winter.
I hear more birds
The woodpecker.
He is red too, his head.
The house finches gather,
a bit of red on their breasts.
Red, in the midst of winter
An awakening
There is life out there, after all.
My day is red,
Red eyes after crying.
Sadness lingers in the moment.
I will not let it take me
To places I’ve been before.
No, not this time
I will not let red,
My eyes must be able to see
What lies ahead,
How we will keep going.
Even when I am sad
And see red,
I remember the cardinals.
They come every day.
Red, yes, he is red
A lovely shade.
It makes me glad.
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.