Patricia Mottola
Town of Cheshire Poet Laureate
Pat Mottola teaches Creative Writing at Southern Connecticut State University, where she earned both an M.S. in Art Education and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. An award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee, her work is published in journals across the country. Pat is President of the Connecticut Poetry Society, and she is the Poet Laureate of Cheshire, CT. She served as editor of Connecticut River Review from 2012–2017. On a global scale, she mentors Afghan women writers living in Afghanistan and beyond. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Under the Red Dress, After Hours, and A Town Like That. Pat was the recipient of the prestigious CSCU system-wide Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award in 2019, as well as the J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teacher Award in 2021.
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Poem of the Month
Poet Laureate Pat Mottola composed this poem for Pride Day and performed it on the Cheshire Green.
Listen to the Trees
I hear the trees talking:
what will we do with all this heartache?
Will we live in isolation,
since we don't know how to live
with each other? Must we become
a ghost forest?
Imagine listening to the rain's
one note and hearing a soft song.
Imagine that for every unkind person
there are others who would embrace you.
Together, we could make this place
beautiful.
Imagine what it would be like to join
our branches, ask forgiveness,
help the next person find
their way through the dark.
Imagine we could love harder,
love better, love more –
fear and hatred extinguished –
one spark of kindness igniting
brightness in the dark,
enlightening all people,
because you are all people,
and all people are you.
Imagine all the universe
a perfect prism,
embracing, uniting,
accepting each other
on this flawed planet,
creating the beauty
that is only ours to behold.
Imagine spending our last moments
caring, keeping the beauty of love
happiness, kindness,
alive, right here.Let us be the giving tree,
the learning tree, the forgiving tree,
the singing tree, all voices
rising to make the music
of rainbows, flowers
of light, the roses, daylily,
daffodil, dianthus,
morning glory, and violet.
Let us be.
–by Pat Mottola,
Cheshire Poet Laureate