Alice Pero
        Alice Pero is the author of Thawed Stars and has been responsible for the long-running Moonday reading series in Pacific Pallisades. I hope I won’t steal her thunder by quoting in its entirety from one of her very shortest poems—its title is “Break of Dawn”: “After the break of dawn/ I stepped in the pieces/ all day.” The sadness and humor and cleverness are typical; I believe that Alice’s poetry serves as a kind of balm for her, for us; in a troubled world, she works/writes as a kind of healer, and her poems (seldom referring to topics of the day or using proper names) are small oases full of insights and observations far from the everyday world and yet in spirit steeped in the everyday world of nature and human foibles. With her work, she tries to make sense of all that is around us, and so at heart she’s a teacher. Whether writing about the reflection of the trees in the water, or the birds on the wire, or the looks of people in the doctor’s waiting room, Alice always has something interesting to offer us, to help make us see. 


Thawed Stars

Will you be satisfied with thawed stars
or will you demand fresh ones?
I'm not sure if fresh ones are available
or freshly killed, or frozen;
how do you like your stars,
well lit? dim? lightly chilled?
I don't have electric ones.
Five pointed stars are out of style,
archaic;
Stay awhile and I'll find one less
blinding.
I've dipped scores and scores of my stars
in black paint so as not to offend
We must placate placate
A world of men wearing sunglasses
But beware of thawed stars
They drip.


First published in Thawed Stars, SunIink Publications, 1999


© 2010 Alice Pero
Alice Pero was a Featured Poet who read her poetry at the November 2009
Second Sunday Poetry Series.