Jesse Mavro Diamond ‘s poetry has been published in many journals in The U.S. Her awards include first place in Eidos magazine’s international poetry competition for “A Very Sober Story,” The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival’s “One of Ten Best Poems in the U.S.” for “Swimming The Hellespont. She was a finalist for 2014 Lascaux Poetry Prize and included in The Lascaux Prize Anthology 2014 for “Chetwynd Morning.” “An Elegy for Devron,” was musically scored by composer Mu Xuan Lin and premiered at Jordan Hall in 2008. For many years, Mavro Diamond has taught writing courses in Boston area colleges and high schools. She currently teaches English at Boston Latin School.

Chetwynd Morning

The spring your twins were born
I found upon our stone steps
the shell of a robin’s egg perfectly formed.
I held it in the shadowy lines of my palm:

Not a single crack! I stood there parsing
the secret a symbol keeps. Soon after,
we awoke to shrill peeps of baby birds
nestled in our bedroom’s eaves.

For some reason, I imagined the mother who grieves
her lost embryo as she feeds the newly born.
Here on Chetwynd the steps of homes are worn
by those who lost eggs and those lucky enough to find one.

All the eaves on all the houses hold shadow as well as sun.
But oh, to be plucked from the dark hand of dusk
lengthening on the stoop. To be found as I was
by your own mother, as mothers can be by children,

as children often are by one another.
Best of all perhaps, to tender the lost, empty shell,
to imagine, to believe, to foretell one’s lifeline
becoming a living filament,

to weave from mud and dry, broken sticks
a holy cradle, and with the heat of one’s hope
to devotedly sit, to wait for as long as it takes
until the cry of hunger brings us, once again, awake.

Jesse Mavro Diamond

Published in Scout Somerville, April 2013 for National Poetry Month