Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer. Our current guest editor is Beth Spencer.
In her poem “In the Giant’s Castle,” Lynette Reini-Grandell invites the reader to accompany her as she creates a plethora of sensory treats for her lover. We feel her excitement and plot with her the surprises to be enjoyed. The small pleasures of loving pepper this poem, and make us smile in anticipation.
Beth Spencer
In the Giant’s Castle
Lynette Reini-Grandell
How I have loved and feared this place, my dear.
For you, I keep on lighting little fires.
For you, I descend the sinews of this many-tendriled root
and wait for music telling me to climb
back up its leafy rungs.
That part of it must be for me, my hunger,
that doorway in my chest, a massive weight
ascending, swinging open wide.
At daybreak I begin to creep
around the edges of the giant’s kitchen.
I find a cupboard door and begin
to pull out ingredients:
face mask, pillow, music stand, a heaping
tablespoon of rhinestones, some birthday
candles, propane lighter, yeast.
Now I light the burner under this stewpot of desires,
add some sugar, stir it
with the ladle mother used for soup.
Will you smell the yeast rise, hear the stealthy
bubbles bloat? You must be on your way.
Even now, I feel a heavy thrill as you approach,
and tune my golden harp for you.
***
Lynette Reini-Grandell is the author of Wild Verge (Holy Cow! Press, 2018) and Approaching the Gate (Holy Cow! Press, 2014), which won the 2015 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award for Poetry. Other work has appeared in Alligator Juniper, The Understanding between Foxes and Light, MNArtists.org, Poetry Motel, Revolver, Poetry City U.S.A., and Seminary Ridge Review, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart and received grants for her work from the Finlandia Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her work is often inspired by Finnish folk culture and song. Based in Minneapolis, she reads regularly with the Bosso Poetry Company and performs in the jazz/poetry collective Sonoglyph. Her website is: www.reini-grandell.com