Amy Thornton Swartz - 3 Very Short Poems (1926-1927)

Forgotten Poems #119 || Reissue #23

   
              —: Duty :—

       I have a little rockery,
          All planted full of posy seeds.
       Now I must tend it carefully
          Or it will overgrow with weeds.
   

   
              —: The Blue Flower :—

       Chicory, chicory,
          Blue as the sky,
       Turn your face toward me,
          As I pass by.
    

   
              —: Forgiveness :—

       Roses, growing in my garden,
          You are very cruel to me;
       But your thrusts I'll gladly pardon,
          For you're beautiful to see.
   

Amy Thornton-Swartz (1886-1973) was, “born in 1886 to Theron T. Thornton and Susie M. Lainhart Thornton and passed away in 1973, at the age of 87, buried in Guilderland Cemetery in Altamont, NY. She was married to Wade H. Swartz and had one child, George Thornton-Swartz.” (PeopleLegacy, 2025) Wrote articles and short-stories for magazines like Homelands (1922) and Social Progress (1923), and poems for The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine (1926-27).

I love poems about flowers and gardens, they remind me of my mum and my nana, and their respective gardens. My nana, who died almost 15 years ago, features fairly frequently in my poetry, including one about her garden—in response to Nina Catherine Howe’s poem ‘Meditation’ (1926)—and another, which I am rather proud of, in response to Hart Crane’s ‘My Grandmother's Love Letters’ (1920). Finally, here’s a short haikai sequence I wrote in her memory, using both tanka and haiku forms as its base;

               ❖

      under all that sky nana's grave

               ❖

      the same flowers
      which adorned
      my nana's
      casket:

      spring morning

               ❖

      the last time
      i sat in nana's garden . . .
      the last time

               ❖

      ah nana
      i remember you
      today,
      blue-skied
      & garden-eyed
    

POETRY PROMPT

Something simple this week: write a rhymed quatrain (i.e. a four-line poem in any rhyme-scheme: ABAB, ABBA, AABB, etc.) about a garden, and leave it in the comments, I’d love to have a read!

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