John J. Ronan is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, a former Ucross Fellow, Bread Loaf Scholar, and Poet Laureate of Gloucester, MA. My book Marrowbone Lane (Backwaters/University of Nebraska, 2010) was a Highly Recommended selection of the Boston Authors Club. That book was followed by Taking the Train of Singularity South from Midtown (Backwaters/University of Nebraska, 2017). A new book, The Idea of Light, appeared in June, 2025. Linda Pastan, once called his work "Very good indeed: original, assured, just a touch sardonic." His poems have appeared in Times Literary Supplement, Main Street Rag,Woven Tale, Thrush, Confrontation, Folio, Threepenny Review, The Recorder, Hollins Critic, New England Review, Southern Poetry Review, Louisville Review, Greensboro Review, Notre Dame Review, NYQ, et. al.
The Gardener
The patio pots, housed for the winter,
Boast crotons, jasmines, ferns,
With here and there a stowaway clover,
Dandelions, a blade or two of grass –
Accidentals as ever unabashed beside
The cute and coddled, the nursery-purchased.
Left to themselves, our guests will survive
The windless kitchen, the chlorinated rain,
Off-to-school and -work routines,
The vacuum, baking days, Fabreze.
And on Thanksgiving or New Year’s, knots
Of friends and family around the island,
A wine-dark, suburban sea
Debating condos in Florida, the untried
Tesla, tuition, A.I.
With Easter and a last possible frost,
It’s out they go, both proud and rowdy,
Under the reckless sun, into the varied air.
