The Dolphin – a poem by Rose Strode

The Dolphin

I woke wanting to remember but could not           except in gold-gray flashes.
Throughout the day it would return                 when I was driving or when my hands

were full and I could not jot down                                     the image. Later I made time to write 
but the fragment vanished at the touch of my attention          though I sensed it still 

like the scent of the sea through an open window.              Even now it goes 
and returns, like the sensation                                       of hearing her voice, a brightness

on the line where sky and ocean meet.                                                It rises
and falls as if it sews a world where it cannot stay                    to a world where I can’t go. 
                                                                                   
                                                                                                   It’s difficult to see    
                                                                                                                                 in all that light.

Rose Strode is a poet, essayist, rehabilitator of overgrown gardens, and naturalist. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Wild Roof, Hare’s Paw, New Ohio Review, Terrain.org, and The Ecopoetry Anthology: Volume II from Trinity University Press. When not writing or helping others with their writing she wanders around in the woods with her dog. Read more of her work at rosestrode.com