Growing up, we all knew better than to ask Mom who her favorite was, as the answer was always the same. With three sons and a daughter to choose from, it was just impossible.

“You’re all my favorites,” she’d say.

Well. Apparently when it came to her hundreds of poems, Mom did have an extra warm feeling for a select few.

In this recording, her college friend Mary Fleming interviews Mom and poses that age-old question:

As mentioned in the interview, Mom’s poem appeared in Yankee Magazine. It’s also in her self-published poetry collection titled when in the rain a snow.

dragons dying

dragons dying
come to castle gardens in the rain

they drink at wells
sleep in empty houses
playing abandoned violins against the night

looking for featherbeds
they come to country windows
sniffing the breads
staring at fires for the early snow

dying
the dragons blow no candles out
they look for emeralds in the street
deliver valentines in may
and carry bells to sunsets and the sea

~ joan vayo, March 25, 1977

“dragons dying” © 1977 Joan Cassidy Vayo. All rights reserved.

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