Saturday, March 21, 2020: National Women's Poetry Month: Viola Weinberg Spencer's poem "For Better or Worse"

For Better or Worse

Could I not love you, want you again

Across these many ragged miles?

Is there something on the road?

Be it rut, choke or shabby ditch?

What keeps you from these arms

I know I was never the thin one

The young one, the shy one

With head bobbing like an apple

But look, I have loved you through

Chemo, through all the things they

Did to me? Do you not want me

As I sit here, bathed and oiled

But not precisely the same

Nor will I ever be? Do you not

Want to find another way that

Would make us whole again?

Is there not a way?

Won’t you tell me, my love?

Won’t you caress my white head

And nuzzle my hairless parts

Until our hearts beat like bongos

Until our hearts twist together

Like hands clasping, grasping

For the juicy meat of better or worse

© 2020 Viola Weinberg Spencer

Bio: Viola Weinberg is a poet and writer, and a survivor (thus far) of Stage Four Renal Cell Cancer, a rare cancer without a cure). She was the first Poet Laureate of the sprawling capitol city of Sacramento, California, where she "rode circuit" as a literary ambassador to schools, libraries, state office buildings and gatherings in parks and cafes. In her earlier writing life, Viola was a radio reporter with a seat in the Capitol Press Corps. 
Widely published with ten books of poetry, she is also the founder of the Tough Old Broads, a group of four close friends who share 200 collective years of writing. The TOBs produced a collection of their works published by Cold River Press called Tough Enough.

Women's History Month Viola Weinberg's "Preparation for the Catastrophe"

Preparations for the Catastrophe

When we have lost it all

we will still have the garden

and I will take the seeds you saved

from last year’s harvest, rolled

In a precious piece of waxed paper

I will poke holes in the dirt, with

just enough water, using grandma’s

netting from an old tule dress

to protect the little darlings

from the famished ravens and deer

I will can beans again, remembering my mother

who said “it could all fall tomorrow”

and my father who said,” if you have land

You will never go hungry” and meant it

I will bake again, as if each week depended

on it, as if the yeast was a treasure in

a cool cupboard, I will know instinctively

that the poor put a mark on my gate

and that they will appear to do chores

magically before dinner time to sit

at the table under the apple tree

taking a bowl of soup and a biscuit

They will inhale the goodness of a stranger’s

largesse, allowing them to sleep on the bench

to be off the next morning to the next stop

where some other soft-hearted woman

who needs a hand might make a pie

to go with their vittles, remembering

all the while that the old gods gave us this garden

Knowing that we could easily gone to the bank

and built a marble and steel monument kitchen

with blue lampshades from Murano

and fine, old reclaimed pine plank floors  

and water that comes bubbling down from

the faucet curved like the neck of a swan

I used to dance in my dreams of that kitchen

before it all crashed, but I will be glad I didn’t

mortgage the future, but fed the foundations

of this modest life, learning to make do

as an art, learning to share as a craft--

never going hungry, always more water in the soup

(c) 2019 Viola Weinberg

 Viola Weinberg is Sacramento Poet Laureate Emerita, serving from

2000-2002. She has published 10 books of poetry and a text on

child abuse. Viola’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies,

journals, newspapers, magazines and online publications. She has

contributed work to plays and musical compositions.  For several

years, she ran the Poetry Showcase for the San Francisco Bay Area

Book Festival. In 2008, she was named the Glenna Luschei

Distinguished Poet. Her new book, Tough Enough, a collaboration

with the Tough Old Broads poetry group, will be published April 28

by Cold River Press.

Viola taught at CSU Sacramento, where she co-founded Women’s

Studies. She has worked in commercial and public media, including

PBS. Viola moved back into publications at Mother Jones Magazine,

where she was the founding Director of the International Fund for

Documentary Photography, now housed in the Leica Foundation.

For years, she served in an international brain trust for the C.S.

Fund on scientific and social issues.

    For the last 5 years, Viola has been fighting Stage Four cancer

with hopeful results. She lives in rural Sonoma County with her

husband, photographer Peter Spencer, and writes in a yurt.