Southern Poetry Review: Julie Suk

The Southern Poetry Review has introduced readers to some of the best poets in the country, many of them from the South.   As promised, here is Julie Suk's splendid poem from the Winter issue.  Julie has a new book out from Autumn House Press, Lie Down With Me: New and Selected Poems.   She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.


SPR has just published a gathering of poems published in the magazine over the last ten years.  More about that in a later post.

BRUEGHEL IN THE HYDRANGEAS

Aging through August, the hydrangeas 

turn from pastels to brick and bronze,

the same rich colors tempering

Brueghel’s Triumph of Death,

that ravaging depiction of pillage and war—

the myriad mutilations 

we foolishly thought we would modify.

When we die, will our last glimpse be

of brilliance, a smear of color scumbled 

over the sour realities left behind?

I wish, but then I look with envy

at two lovers in the painting 

having at it under a tree, 

the pair of them entwined,

her head thrown back, the creamy neck 

exposed as long as paint holds.

Better than years of scrubbing 

the resilience of dirt,

cheeks graying along the way.

True, Brueghel’s faces are never 

Valentine sweet—

you can depend on a darkness there

brooding below the pink.