The year's waiting room.
We sleep fitfully, count
losses, stay in the shower
too long and are late for work.
Submerged in half-light,
trees, emptied of crows,
plead with the sky.
We huddle around shy fires:
late light caught in clouded furrows,
watery cheek of the waning daytime moon.
Small, dull birds circle;
worry all that we've tried
to leave behind.
Lesley Kimball is the recipient of an award for the collaborative project Borderlands in the Portsmouth Poet Laureate
Programs Voice and Vision public art project. The interactive poetry sculpture is permanently installed at the Portsmouth Public Library. Her poem Devotional was featured on the Web site for the NH Center for the Book and her poems have appeared in The Café Review, Juicebox, Ballard Street and the anthologies The Other Side of Sorrow and The Longest Day.
Lesley lives and writes in Portsmouth, NH, where she emcees a ridiculously well-attended monthly poetry reading.
| This poem came out of a dry spell of writing. I had tried to participate in a 30 day/30 poem challenge in December and only made it to 6 poems. I decided to write at least one poem per month in the following year and started with an image that seemed to sum up the essence of January: “the year’s waiting room”. January and February’s poems helped get the writing habit started again. And, the poem helped me get through a New England January as well. |
