Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.
Twin Oaks
by Karen Neuberg
with a nod to Joyce Mansour
Let the blue crayon have its wish
to color the sky, then shape a cloud
to become a kite that becomes a carpet
flying back into the vestibule of the house
you grew up in. Rush up the stairs
and into your old room and greet
the twin oaks outside your window
like the long-lost friends they are.
See them wave. See them
dance and let down their hair
for you to braid into your heart.
Hear them tell how they sometimes wept
because they were not part of a forest
or even a copse in the middle
of a field of wildflowers. Scrape
their sadness into a bowl of moss
where mushrooms surprise morning
with their unexpected presence.
And when the sun dips from the other side
of earth and rises where you are, step back
into your life carrying with you those twin oaks
and their forest dreams plaited into your heart
Previously published in The Inflectionist Review, Issue 17, January 2024
Karen Neuberg’s poetry has appeared in Canary, The Mackinaw, Nixes Mate, Unbroken, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, PURSUIT (Kelsay Press) and three chapbooks including the elephants are asking (Glass Lyre).She lives in Brooklyn, NY, holds an MFA from The New School, and is associate editor of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East.
Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print
Previous Renaissance Poets
April Poets