Sign

A poem for Susan P. Bachrach (November 1939 – May 2013).

This poem was written soon after Sue Bachrach’s death, by Dorian Brooks, poet and activist for women’s and American Indian rights, and a Radcliffe classmate of mine and Sue’s. Sue was a devoted student of art history and traveled to Germany to research and write about the painter Paula Modersohn-Becker. Her essay of some 20 years ago “Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907): Woman and Artist as Revealed Through Her Depiction of Children” may be found at Fembio: Woman and Artist Through her Depiction of Children. Sue was diagnosed with cancer a few months before her death. She bore the diagnosis and her impending passing with courage, grace and utmost care for those who loved her.

Dorian Brooks has published numerous books of poetry, among them The Wren’s Cry (2009). Her biographical article on the Mohegan anthropologist and medicine woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon may be found at Fembio.org: Gladys Tantaquidgeon.

        Sign

for Sue Bachrach

November 1939 – May 2013

I went to the woods

to escape my fear

and hold on longer

to my April dream—

that your sick days

would mean no more

than a few high clouds

or a little rain.

Although you’d said

They’ve done all they can,

I just kept searching

for wildflowers.

Then I saw—among

sun-flecked trees,

poised in the shallows

at a pond’s edge—

a great blue heron,

tall, resplendent

in shadowy light.

I thought of you,

pensive and serene,

brightening the day

with elegant grace.  

I stood watching…

till he flapped his wings,

flew over the water

took to the sky

and was gone

and then I knew.

            —Dorian Brooks