Poems by Pamela Kenley-Meschino
By Pamela Kenley-Meschino
It’s easy to love a dog,
to offer a place by the fire
a space to fill with endless
joys of fetch and return.
Discoveries of forest paths,
curb appeal, the frolic
of devotion, a lifetime bond,
however brief, forged by heart.
Not so easy, though, to love a calf
that bounds across a pasture
chasing sunbeams, running
rings around his mother’s flank
or the piglet trying precarious
legs for the first time.
They can’t reach past fences
or the designation of their brand.
They won’t be rescued or recognized.
Their short lives serve a purpose
suited best for human appetite,
awareness in their dark eyes
forgotten at the table
where creature comforts suit
the needs of expectations,
where home is by invitation only.
“Creature skins”
By Pamela Kenley-Meschino
Don’t tell me carrots scream
when you pull them from their
muddy beds, sliced tomatoes
feel the tragedy of demise beneath
the Sheffield blade. It’s a facile
argument for fools. Carrots are not
sentient beings. They do not mourn
lost children, flinch from a murder
of pain, or run for an open door,
glimpsing freedom from the cruelty
of indifference, an imperative
to keep breathing. We do not befriend
carrots, keep them as companions,
wonder at emotions reflected in the depth
of their eyes or feel a kinship of recognition
when their bowed heads turn toward
an outstretched palm. The arguments cease
to make meaning as we attempt to slip
from our creature skins, our furless sameness,
as though the voiceless have invisible hearts
that beat without consequence in the grand
scheme of Nature’s meticulous design.
“Sublime Convergences”
By Pamela Kenley-Meschino
I vote for small flowers
that grow in pavement cracks,
mop-top dandelions defiantly
bright against concrete
grey, for carpets of leaves
that monopolize green gardens
in the blitz of fall,
Giant Oaks throwing fat acorns
below to busy squirrels.
I vote for skies thick with stars
on dark nights, miracles of planets
winking back, sublime convergences.
I vote for listening to inside voices,
for distant memories that cradle
future promises, for what hinges
on revision, the details of initiation
germinating in the ebony soil.
- Pamela
Kenley-Meschino is originally from the UK, where she developed a love of
nature, poetry, and music, thanks in part to the influence of her Irish mother.
Her poetry has appeared in Literal Latté, Bards Annual anthologies,
The New Verse News, The Stafford Challenge Anthology, Verse
Virtual, and has been featured on WNYC’s 2025 poetry month presentations.
She is an educator whose classes explore the connection between writing and
healing, as well as the importance of shared stories.