by Pamela Porter
Never mind how we got here.
I am in my chair by the window.
I am hauling buckets of feed over snow
to the barn. Writing words on paper
torn from a sack of feed.
I will still be here, doing the same thing,
the feathered, frozen air firming
my breath at the window.
And months later, the bruised sky
falling away to sleep. And narrow
corridors carved by rain.
Darkness to light to darkness.
The visible and invisible.
The wren never thinks about
another way to live: show that you
mean no harm. Receive everything
as seriously as dream.
I am here with one light on,
my heart high in my chest, a lamp
blazing out its flame.
If life wants me, she knows where I am.
—after Linda Gregg
— from Juniper Volume 4, Issue 1