Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Vrenios
The jazz of the chainsaw wounds
as the lop-limbed pines fold and tumble,
their silvery needles pushing down against the air
bowing in genuflection.
The light from the newly uncovered sun
shyly illuminates my drive
like a brief thought of unaccustomed love.
Each year there are fewer pines,
felled by rot, disease or age
but I feel their loss
much like the forever green
of a lover’s back shored up
against mine,
the indent no longer
sculptured on his pillow.
I will get used to this brightness
slashing an unfamiliar swath
across my drive.
I might even bless it,
but those tall shadows—
how I will miss them!
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Vrenios has been published in Clementine, in the "Me As A Child" series (Silver Birch Press) and in a forthcoming issue of Edison Literary Review and Kentucky Review. She also co-wrote the book "Party Line" under the name Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. She has studied with Judith Harris, Gloria Boyer, Hailey Leithauser, and Alexandra Van de Kamp.
Elizabeth is a professor emerita from American University in Washington DC, having chaired the vocal and music departments. Vrenios’ solo recitals throughout the United States, South America, Scandinavia, Japan and Europe have been acclaimed, and as the artistic director of the Redwoods Opera Workshop in Mendocino, California, and the Crittenden Opera Workshop in Washington D.C. and Boston, she has influenced and trained students across the country. She is a member of the international Who’s Who of Musicians, and is the past National President of the National Opera Association.