Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
3 poems
Standing Chimney
The chimney stands among the yellow weeds,
Rising against the sunset, grim, alone.
What purpose prompts the voice that intercedes
With time and wind to spare this ghost of stone?
I asked myself. And then from out nowhere,
There came the answer I might not have heard
Had I walked on in silence. Through the air
I heard the whir of wings, the cry of bird.
Through wind-swerved trees and tangled underbrush,
Rising and circling in their nightly quest,
Into the chimney throat with chirps that hush
As each small creature finds its perch and nest,
A swarm of chimney-sweeps drops out of sight
Like penny change inside the bank of night.
Maw Milly
(The Sassafras Woman)
When Spring comes to the Ozarks
And the berry pickers pass,
Out of the South comes Milly
To sell me sassafras.
The old man halts the wagon,
And pulls the brake: “Whoa thair!”
The children pour out in the street,
The sunlight in their hair.
They rush up to my doorsteps --
“A dime a bunch! Fresh roots!”
Their little hearts high-pounding
Beneath their ragged suits.
Maw Milly looks on smiling,
And tells me how the tea
One brews from roots of sassafras
Is the “best thing” for me.
She lives inside her wagon
Pulled by a horse and mule,
She has eleven children . . .
But none have gone to school.
In Spring she comes to Arkansas
To pick the ripe strawberries,
Then up into Missouri
She gathers bright red cherries.
In southern Oklahoma
She helps to harvest corn;
And almost every winter
A little one is born.
I cannot pity Milly
For living in that way,
And for the homely worries
That fill her busy day:
For all those happy children,
With sunlight in their hair
Have made of Mother Milly
A gypsy millionaire!
When Milly sells me sassafras
I buy a priceless thing:
The courage of existence,
And the Hope of Spring!
Fear
(In the Ozarks)
For twenty days
The mountain has been covered with snow.
The wolves have stopped their yelping.
On snow-cushioned feed, belly low,
Ears cocked for sound, they advance --
Fear-glazed eyes riveted
On the hunger-appeasing hut in the valley.
A horse neighs.
Chickens cackle, ducks huddle,
The pink noses of rabbits quiver.
Behind a cracked window pane,
Children clustered about her,
A woman stares toward the mountain --
The fingers of her right hand
Curled about the handle of a dented ax.
Rosa Zagnoni (Zan-YO-nee) Marinoni (1888-1970) wrote fiction and poetry from 1925 to 1970. She was the poet laureate of Arkansas from 1953 through 1970. She founded Poetry Day in Arkansas on October 15, 1948, and the event is named in her honor. She is a 2025 inductee into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.