Shelf-Love, by Susan Whelehan

Shelf-Love  
          
after Jelly Shelf, by Mary Pratt (Canada) 1999
​(at 1.51 in video) 
 
Juice now jeweled
in luscious light 
in jelly jars jam-
med with delicious 
fruits of your labour:
bakeapples, blueberries, 
chokecherries, nectar
illuminated by the sun 
that brought the fruit to
fruition now sparkling the
glass, glinting and 
mirrored in the polished
wood bright with the
vision of children 
spreading your love
over hot, buttered
toast in the wintry
months to come to
start each day, dark 
though it may be.
They will be 
lit from within.

​Susan Whelehan

Susan Whelehan believes that rhythm and words are medicine covered by God’s Socialist Health Care Plan for Humanity. Her collection, The Sky Laughs at Borders, was published by Piquant Press in 2019. A runner-up in CBC’s Canada Writes, she has been published by Novalis, Knopf/Random House, The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star. A member of the League of Canadian Poets she facilitates writing workshops on-line, at the Haliburton School of the Arts, St. Michael’s College U of T Continuing Ed. and in her home in Toronto.