Shelter
Birds fluff their feathers,
bugs crawl beneath curved leaves;
small woodland creatures peer
out of the holes in their hollowed
out trees and watch the water
slash the green, stir up the mud,
fill up the creek till it sloshes
against its banks and flows
ever downward in rivulets
and streams. Somewhere in a stone
house in the middle of a town
a middle-aged woman
puts a kettle on, grinds
her coffee beans, sits
by the rain-splattered window
turns the pages and reads,
slowly, reverently–some old and dusty thing–
Eliot or Trollope, Chesterton or Hardy.
When You’ve Reached Middle Age
Your poetry turns to prose,
your marginalia to shopping lists.
You beat your clever barbs
into safety pins
and save your sarcasm
for restaurant reviews.
You are too tired to join the cult
When they come knocking
on your door,
though you search for some utopia
more desperately than ever.
Time to the young is something to kill–
to overfill, or to manage, to divide–
but moments to you are gold
sifted from endless mud,
lifted from the clear stream of life
ever flowing in this world.
Bionote
Jessamyn Rains is a mother of small children who writes and makes music. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in various publications, including Foreshadow, Dappled Things, InScribe, Amethyst Review, and Trampoline. She lives with her family in Tennessee.
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