Purchase Joanne's New Book Hospice House »

Joanne the Poet - The Poetry of Joanne M. Clarkson

Bliss in Print!

My first ‘Bliss’  poem just appeared in print!  It, along with another poem about a nurse in a logging community, were chosen to be included in the Tenth Anniversary issue of the Saranac Review.  I have lines about my little granddaughter in a number of poems, but this was the first one I wrote (last fall) just about her.  It is below:

Birth of the North Wind

I wrap the baby in my old coat and take her

out under cedar to hear winter

begin.  Wind is high, from the north, north-

east.  It has an open-mouthed sigh just short

of a howl.  It lauds absent

blossoms.  She lifts her face

to it, lips parted, offering her first

word, a yes to old, old

mountains that she remembers like hunger.

Her cheeks glow with the story of

firelight.  Her tiny hands wriggle out of

wool to grasp the wind’s invisible

hide full of teeth, sorrow and a

tameness only the very young

understand.  Her perfect cloud of breath

trails away becoming sunset, becoming

snow, guiding the north wind

southward.

 

 

Leave a Reply