Hunger
Does the maple leaf hunger
for the sun, shaking hands with its light,
the light that turns the maples’ leaves
to rusty orange, heavy with color,
so heavy they drop?
Does the cardinal hunger
for its mate, how they are never
more than twenty feet away from each other,
the wind of their flight, attaining bird seeds or shelter,
so close they thrive?
Do the deer hunger for acorns,
remembering the buttery taste of those already eaten,
or do they step forward each bite
in wonder, crunch the nut open,
so many they live,
and does the stream bed hunger
for water, thirsty even for evening’s dew,
the dew that caresses its silt, changes
it from grey mud to black, evaporates,
so even the frost is hungry?
© Laura Rodley, 2016
I am always happy to get an email from Laura Rodley because that usually means she sent me something beautiful. And as you can see, the latest email fulfilled that expectation.
THANK-YOU Laura for letting me share your work here.
Laura Rodley’s work has been nominated numerous times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of Net anthologies. In 2013 Laura was awarded the Pushcart Prize (for her poem “Resurrection,” which originally appeared in The New Verse News).
She has two chapbooks from Finishing Line Press: Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose, which Finishing Line nominated for a PEN L.L.Winship Award, and Rappelling Blue Light, which was a Massachusetts Book Award nominee.
Former co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, Laura teaches As You Write It classes; she has edited and published As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology volumes I-V, which was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award. She has also been featured reader at Greenfield Word Festival since its conception.
She is also a free lance writer. You can read her stories “Llamas at the Big E” and “Centennial at the Big E” at Country Folks.
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