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Joanne the Poet - The Poetry of Joanne M. Clarkson

“Inhale/Exhale” Poems in Calendula Review

The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine published two of my poems in their Fall 2024 issue. The theme was “Inhale/Exhale.” You can read the whole journal at Http://www.thecalendulareview.com. Then look under ‘issues.’ Here are the poems:

Whale Watching

I know the black-and-white

      of being alive when I hear

the explosive breach of breath:

           Orcas rear

from sea-living into the glorious

       necessity of air.

Breathing is a choice. Different

     from the automatic heartbeat.

The winds teach us to believe

in the power of the invisible.

We point and cheer as the tour boat

      idles the required distance

from the carousel pod

            performing its dance

of living in two worlds.

At the rail, we don’t realize

      we are holding our breath

until we let it go as they rise

           again, open

the tops of their heads

                in a waterfall of spectrums

before they again inhale clouds, stars,

      a random feather

and dive deep, deeper, leaving us

          a souvenir of air,

the moment of our collective Aaahhhh….

Looking Glass

There is life only silver can see. Aunt Sophie

had stories of accompanying a country doctor.

In those long-ago days, a nurse

carried three things in her pocket:

a thermometer, a scissors and a small, round

mirror. Once, she told me, after a difficult

birth while the doc attended to the mother,

she turned to the infant, blue and silent,

left in a basin on a window ledge.

For some reason, she slipped out her mirror,

held it under the tiny nose. Watched,

unbelieving at first, as the flat surface blurred

with the faintest hint of fog.

Immediately she pressed her thumbs against

the tiny chest. Gently parted the still lips

and whispered in her own breath

until the body found its rhythm.

To this day, as a nurse, besides my stethoscope

and blood pressure cuff. In addition

to my computer. I carry a small mirror.

At the beginning and in the final hours,

there are souls only silver sees.

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