Honeyed Future Memories

It is some small consolation that if we can't continue to keep company with the Young Neighborlady we can at least envision her writing away in her new home in the very room that was formerly the office of Wisconsin's first poet laureate, Ellen Kort.

Yes, there is some comfort in knowing that, in a way, it was meant to be.

It seems Ellen Kort is something of a kindred spirit to the Young Neighborlady and others in NDLand. Here she writes about something that has been on our minds (and our toast) quite alot of late.

Over and Over Again

When I go to the grocery store and stand
in front of the shelf filled with jars of honey
every brand spells the word Mama
early morning toast sliced from a loaf
of homemade bread spread with honey
dipped from the little wax rooms of bees
Honey was a luxury at our house and every
time we had it Mama told us how bees
need strength to fly from one plant to another
how their little bodies grow fat from the dust
of pollen when they enter the open house
of flowers how they have to regurgitate
a sip of nectar 200 times in order to turn it
into honey Mama naming what cannot
be named the pure grace of hard labor
the soft hum of gratitude Mama
I’m beginning to understand how the long
Years unwind how stories come back
On the wings of memory simple things
Locked together an offering of recurring
Echoes Even now your voice sweet as honey

- Ellen Kort


When the Young Neighborlady is poet laureate we can say, "She lived right there, just across the alley. She wrote every minute she could while doing a terrific job of raising three beautiful and spirited children, nurturing her marriage to a wonderful man who never failed to think big, and gently gathering everyone she met into a colorful, everlasting, kind of freaky and geeky, bouquet of friendship."