Poetry by Jenna Hammond : Toutes les Fleurs, Meme Sous la Pluie All the Flowers, Even in the Rain

Toutes les Fleurs, Meme Sous la Pluie  
All the Flowers, Even in the Rain

Although as usual
Late autumn sun invisible
We two stood casual
In sunglasses reflecting clouds.

Posing young American filles
Off Boulevard Saint.-Germain.
 
Tawny copper rims cool
Lenses blue for Blondie
Like your Hollywood eyes.
Mine rosy pink pretty
Beneath a messy bun of windswept curls.
A bundle of paper-wrapped irises stolen fleetingly
For a passerby to snap une photo
In front of la petite boutique des fleurs.
 
The flowers, toutes les fleurs,
Fill space serene behind us
Three tidy rows of white tin buckets
Overflowing daisies, lilacs, lilies and the like.
 
Merci to you, 
Paris, gay Paris;
Never bought the flowers
But remember always
Living snapshots en plein air.

Portraits and collages, still-life,
People, flowers, cafes, lights.

C’est la vie. N’importe quoi. 
To us, it doesn’t matter.
Strangers come neighbors 
Pacing streets that never end.


Bio:
Published for poetry in adolescence, Jenna Hammond is the author of Downward Mule with another book anticipated in 2022. Jenna formerly led family yoga classes on weekends with a weekday desk job as editor-in-chief. Writing about a girl who walks because of yoga motivated Jenna’s children’s yoga certification, which colors her kid lit. She holds a master’s degree in journalism and a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in French, and guest taught creative writing at a juvenile detention center. When she’s not headlining book and yoga events, find Jenna writing in New Jersey or surfing in Montauk, NY, with her family and their beloved pit bull rescue.