Part of a Legacy by Frank Steele : American Life in Poetry

The Poetry Foundation

Library of Congress

University of Nebraska
at Lincoln

American Life in Poetry: Column 158

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Putting bed pillows onto the grass to freshen, it’s a pretty humble subject for a poem, but look how Kentucky poet, Frank Steele, deftly uses a sun-warmed pillow to bring back the comfort and security of childhood.

Part of a Legacy

I take pillows outdoors to sun them

as my mother did. “Keeps bedding fresh,”

she said. It was April then, too--

buttercups fluffing their frail sails,

one striped bee humming grudges, a crinkle

of jonquils. Weeds reclaimed bare ground.

All of these leaked somehow

into the pillows, looking odd where they

simmered all day, the size of hams, out of place

on grass. And at night I could feel

some part of my mother still with me

in the warmth of my face as I dreamed

baseball and honeysuckle, sleeping

on sunlight.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2000 by Frank Steele, whose most recent book of poetry is “Singing into That Fresh Light,” co-authored with Peggy Steele, ed. Robert Bly, Blue Sofa Press, 2001. Reprinted from “Blue Sofa Review,” Vol. II, no. 1, Spring 2000, by permission of Frank Steele. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

POEM SEARCH