2 Poems by Cindy Hunter Morgan

   
Cindy Hunter Morgan's poems have appeared in West Branch, Tar River Poetry, Bateau, Sugar House Review, Weave, The Christian Science Monitor, A cappella Zoo, and elsewhere. Her chapbook manuscript, “The Sultan, The Skater, The Bicycle Maker,” has been a finalist in the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition (Hudson Valley Writers Center) and the Hill-Stead Museum's Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. For ten years, she worked in the orchestra field, directing publicity for the Grand Rapids Symphony and, later, the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. She lives in East Lansing.

‘The Ringmaster’ by Cindy Hunter Morgan

  

  

He wanted a marching band

to follow the street sweeper,

a barrel organ in every bank lobby,

a shooting gallery at the public library,

a trained bear to deliver mail,

booths of sweets on every street corner.

He thought, with all of this, he might

come to crave silence,

to appreciate bird song and green tea,

pleasures which had always eluded him.

Excess was the only path to simplicity

he could imagine, though he searched

every day for what he expected

the entrance to tranquility might look like:

a narrow trail tiled with tarot cards,

lined with flickering candles,

leading to a glade in Sri Lanka

where elephants roll in wild grass,

and a boy from the tea factory

sits quietly, eating cotton candy

and listening to stars.

This poem appeared in Sugar House Review (Volume 3, Spring/Summer 2011)

‘The Pawnbroker’ by Cindy Hunter Morgan

   

   

On Sunday, the pawnbroker

closes his shop and spends

the morning in the park

feeding ducks, trying to

redistribute the wealth

of this world in ragged

cubes of bread.  At noon,

he naps in a tent of spruce boughs,

his sleep addled with unfamiliar

rustlings and wild dreams filled

with peculiar transactions

with woodland creatures:

a squirrel begging to trade

the bones of his mother

for a handful of nuts,

a robin pleading to exchange

her nest for three worms.

Later, he walks through

the park, staring at everyone,

wondering what each person

has bartered for her life,

how much men have traded

for an afternoon of

chess and sunshine.

This poem appeared in Sugar House Review (Volume 3, Spring/Summer 2011)