Monthly Archives: March 2023

Doing
 
  
Get-the-van-fixed-food-shop-and-
make-lasagna self
 
missing
     the listen
to deep-solitude
self.
 
While crows scrabble
and joy,
 
some conjure now to shape
the stillness-field
     into language.
 
The doing
done,
 
to sit as an open
room
 
in slow-time
 
the only
     rivet-need
 
to receive
     the sun-stained
         daughter
 
of a voice.

Melanie Green‘s most recent poetry collection, A Long, Wide Stretch of Calm was published by The Poetry Box of Beaverton, Oregon. The titles of her earlier collections are: Continuing Bridge and Determining Sky. She is a resident of Portland, Oregon. 

Do You Hear the More Distant Flute? 
Title from “He’s there among the scented trees” by Rabindranath Tagore 
 
From the porch I sip the sky’s vastness 
moon cupping the earth’s light 
stars and planets budding, 
my shawl the raucous crickets 
calling autumn, the whirring 
purr of a displaced owl 
fringed with the dwindling scent 
of new-mown hay 
 
But in the cracks between insects’ 
chirps, there is the hint of a distant 
flute. Do you hear how it lilts 
through your day’s ballad, 
your dreams pillowed till dawn 
by its final verse? 

Nancy K. Jentsch’s poetry has appeared recently in The Pine Cone Review, Scissortail Quarterly, and Verse-Virtual. Her chapbook, Authorized Visitors, was published in 2017 (Cherry Grove Collections) and Between the Rows, her first poetry collection, con be purchased from Shanti Arts. More information is available on her website: https://jentsch8.wixsite.com/my-site.