Wondering, Just for Today – a poem by Allison Thorpe

Wondering, Just for Today

                                                For Emily

 

One jaggy shard

            Of bird blue shell

                        Frail as tissue paper

 

Among the wild grass

            Speckled and sun handled

                        Dainty as a dust ball in my palm

 

I hope it hatched a successful fledgling

            Rather than predator thievery

                        I worry so much these days

 

And on this slow sorrow of a morning

            A friend’s face sweet among clouds

                        I want to preserve life

 

Or what had once held it

            The shell    the body    the husk

                        Isn’t it all the same?

 

The pause where humble air settles

            That window through which

                        We wing and soar

 

 

Allison Thorpe‘s latest book is Restless Pilgrims (Broadstone Books).  Her work has been published in such journals as Pleiades, Tipton Poetry Journal, So To Speak, and Hamilton Stone Review and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize.  She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.