Poem for the first week of March 2022

In like a lion
(after Jeannine Hall Gailey)

This week is so strange: crocus open
beneath the ancient cherry tree as Russian bombs
fall on the Mother of Cities; mask mandates drop
and my head throbs with the whiplash
weather. I feel I should be tough, resilient
as the flowers, but my body betrays
me with fevers, dark circles, a nagging cough,
uneasy dreams – it knows things
are really not okay, no matter what
meditation apps, herbal teas, or vitamins
I apply to this uncomfortable spring.

I read this blog post by Jeannine Hall Gailey a couple days ago, and images and thoughts from my own week coalesced around her words. The poem practically wrote itself.

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Poems in Stick Figure Poetry, Jaden

The new year began on an exciting note with the Winter 2022 issue of Stick Figure Poetry, which contains my poem “Seattle Snow Storm.” I want to give a shout-out to Jeannine Hall Gailey, whose blog post from a couple years ago inspired the poem. Thank you, Jeannine, and thank you, Stick Figure Poetry!

And earlier in 2021, right before the second half of the year ate my lunch, two other poems of mine were published in Issue #2 of Jaden Magazine, a gorgeous publication of Small Leaf Press in the UK. One of them (“Shuffle”) can be seen in the left-hand column on the second preview page. Thank you, Candice and the rest of the Small Leaf team!

Here’s wishing for us all a year of new opportunities, new ideas, and new perspectives.