Hildegard (Dee) Lambert

CONTACT:
Address: P.O. Box 104, Cazenovia, WI 53924, phone: 608-983-2743
Email: bobdeelambert@gmail.com

BIO:
Hildegard (Dee) Lambert was born in Vienna, Austria. The family migrated to America in 1955. She was raised in Janesville, Wisconsin, currently residing in Cazenovia, part of the Driftless area. She has been writing since her teen years, mainly poetry, journaling and short essays. Two pieces, “The Breakdown” and “Train Ride” were included in the anthology, A Short Walk on a Long Road, from UW-Rock County Creative Writing Class. In the 1980’s Dee was writing a weekly column for two local newspapers. She has had a number of her poems published in the last few years, Bramble, the WFOP calendars, the Museletter, and a Catalog of Small Machines. Dee is a member of WFOP, Shake Rag Alley Poetry Group and Driftless Writers. 

PUBLICATIONS:
A historical novel Fräulein Anni (2026), available on Amazon.

Poetry

Winter is Coming

The soft whispers of autumn leaves
Falling, now gone.
In their stead, harsh winds that bite,
Whip around the corners.
And so it goes.
Winter is coming.

I saw a reflection in my window today.
The summer colors, the autumn light
gone, like the deep brown of my hair,
frosted white by time.
Lines creasing across this face.
Winter is coming.

A reflection from one window to another.
Behind me, a snow covered field,
Another winter, another time,
Bittersweet memories
children on sleds, snowmen guarding fields,
Winter is coming.

Below the second window
an old, old crate, shipping label intact,
Germany to USA back in ‘55.
All remind me of times long gone,
passed away, passed behind.
Two windows reflected,
one behind me, one looks to a hoar covered woods,
grayed by the icy mist.
A future as hazy as that reflection.

I am caught as well in that reflection,
dragging the past behind me,
too aware of what no longer is.
Always, always caught somewhere between,
the past, the present and the future.
In that presence, reflected too,
is the fire that warms me
where loneliness is my companion.
Winter is here.

Good Morning, America, How Are You?

After “The City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman

“Good Morning, America, How Are You?”
“Don’t you know me, I’m your Native Son”.
The train whispers with each turn of the line.

Poverty in America
lies by old train tracks,

Hopelessness.
Between Wide open ranges, canyons in the distance
razors against the enormous blue,
buttes poking through scrubs and desert sands,
cattle pens from the Old West,
Mountains and streams,
riches we barely see.

This train sways the body, softly, side to side.
Throw in a cowboy song,
the Blues from the Southland.
Too easy to fall asleep…too easy.

Plastic bags crucified on broken fences
tall, scraggly grasses filled with styrofoam cups,
broken glass, shining in the sun,
from barren back yards, abandoned toys
up to the very rails themselves.

Rusted old trucks and cars,
weeds growing inside the empty shells,
monuments to better days, better years,
scattered about in one man’s dreams
junk meant to be part of a whole.
That dream, like so many, long gone.

In the backyards, train yards of the cities
only blocks beyond the glassed-in, glittering towers
of wealth and power,
chipped and broken pillars of the L-train,
the trash of a magnitude of lives accumulate,
multiply, like trophies from a storm,
the detritus of a receding flood.

See this America with me.
The glory of America
reduced to litter next to the track,
Storage sheds, abandoned Texaco stations,
stucco houses with bullet holes,
cracked, broken parking lots
where once, wildflowers grew,
all speed past these windows,
on this old train.

Then answer this for me,
“Good morning, America,
How are you — Today?”