1 Poem by M.J.Iuppa

Why We Didn’t Have More Time Together

When death is no longer mysterious, when we realize
it’s a one way ticket heading west  to a destination
that will be free of forethought, then we’ll find our-

selves ready to lie down on a grassy bank to watch
the creek’s still water, the cinnamon ant balancing
on the tip of a blade of  grass, reaching with delight.

It’s  a sermon we rarely hear, but in spring, it sounds
like sun & wind, recalling relationships forgotten
in  winter.  Listen closely, we have put off too many

things— our minds, full of messages not sent because
we’re too busy doing as we please, which is more
 puzzling than death, don’t you think?


Bionote

M.J. Iuppa lives on Red Rooster Farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Most recent poems, lyric essays and fictions have appeared in the following journals: Poppy Road Review Black Poppy Review,Digging to the Roots, 2015 Calendar, Ealain, Poetry Pacific Review, Grey Sparrow Press: Snow Jewel Anthology, 100 Word Story, Avocet, Eunoia Review, Festival Writer, Silver Birch Press: Where I Live Anthology,Turtle Island Quarterly, Wild Quarterly, Boyne Berries Magazine (Ireland), The Lake, (U.K.), Punchnel’s; forthcoming in Camroc Review, Tar River Poetry, Corvus Review, Clementine Poetry, Postcard Poetry & Prose, among others. She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College. You can follow her musings on art, writing, and sustainability on mjiuppa.blogspot.