Rita Wolpert
August 29, 1949 - May 13, 2020
Rita Wolpert started writing poems in her forties when she confronted her cancer diagnosis with a collection of limericks. She also co-wrote the chapbook, Close to the Heart: Sisters Writing about Breast Cancer, with her sister, Maxine Susman. She has written plays for the Performative Arts Workshop at the Catskill Art Society. Professor Emerita of Psychology at Caldwell University, she wrote: “I like playing with forms—limericks, haiku, sonnets, free verse and blues. The challenge is to be neither glib nor formulaic, but to do the honest work of an authentic poem” (quotation courtesy of The Tower Poets of Caldwell University). According to Rita, rhythm, meter and rhyme trained her to tame chaos and confusion as well as to report the joy and beauty of being in love with the world.
Mourning Ritual
How can he mourn what he never had,
nothing to burn or bury.
He saved some memories
in sterile packs
or so he dreamed,
but they were empty.
A dream woke him:
a cowbird’s satin glottal
kissed his cheek,
but, it was only tears.
At twilight he sat in the road,
by a doe with movie star eyes.
They gazed at each other
as she laid legs splayed,
till the sheriff came to shoot her.
Every day he searches for mourning,
face creviced,
eyes glazed,
heart brittle
as a beech leaf clinging
to a dead branch in winter.
—Presence 2017