Writing Joy – a poem by Diane Gottlieb

Writing Joy

Is it possible,
when loss
 
scrapes across my page
disturbing letters, scattering words,
 
slicing air? A midnight rain
pounds against windows

of wide white space,
one cruel force of spirit

sent to break mine.
It takes sharp vision

or God’s imagination
to see each drop as its own

sacred animal, inking
wet wild teeth

into paper 
cut from trees.

Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, the forthcoming Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage and the Prose/Creative Nonfiction Editor of Emerge Literary Journal. Her writing appears in Brevity, Witness, Florida Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, among many other lovely places.