Monday, 11 November 2019

1 Poem by Nels Hanson

New Day

Overnight this world did
change, at early morning
he noticed right away, sun

on rose then golden breast
of dove on red-tiled roof,
a four o’clock’s pink bells

echoing with bees, the lizard
on tiny claws pumping legs
up and down, stirring blood

to bask in blond warm light.
Spidery ferns uncurled thin
fronds of green filigree, sky

was cobalt, one ivory cloud
an egret’s feather, water at
the faucet tasted sweet, cold

from river far underground.
At center of a wide hibiscus
bloom streaked rose, deepest

cardinal, a tall scarlet stamen
grew crosswise buds, saffron
stalks with globes like Earth,

towers with yellow beacons.
Ruby-throated hummingbird
drank nectar three seconds in

a whir and disappeared before
the Monarch butterfly arrived
on translucent wings, orange

veined by black tiger stripes.
Everything was different yet
the same. With new old eyes

of a lost explorer in a pristine
world he saw he wasn’t lost
but finally home again as he

walked Eve’s garden Adam
never knew though the story
says he was the first to wake.


Bionote

Nels Hanson grew up on a small farm in the San Joaquin Valley of California and has worked as a farmer, teacher and contract writer/editor. His fiction received the San Francisco Foundation’s James D. Phelan Award and Pushcart nominations in 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016. His poems received a 2014 Pushcart nomination, Sharkpack Review’s 2014 Prospero Prize, and 2015 and 2016 Best of the Net nominations.

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