Seed Catalogs Almost time to plant inside, tiny plants emerging from peat pots, thirsting for sun’s slant to stout their sprout, break open their small hearts to bless us with heavenly scents, off charts. Tall sunflowers grow, to hold on their heads caps of snow next year, keep hungry birds fed. Brownbagging for winter, start indoor seeds now, squash, parsnips, tomatoes, feed hungry cows with corn spread later when soil’s just warm, plant garlic … [Read more...]
Laura Rodley “Given”
Given I was given these two hands, these two feet; I was given them without asking and they are mine. With my feet on your body I do walk on frozen ground where coyotes step, fishers, raccoons, and quail. With my breath I inhale your sweet liquor, the cold snap of four degrees; how my lungs crave your air inside me, its green perfume, though now your body is slick with ice, hard with frost, tasting green though I must cover … [Read more...]
New poem by Laura Rodley
Fresh From the Vine My father stood on his hands to dive off the diving board, all six foot four inches of him suspended in air, curling his fingers around the hard edge of the gritty grey board, and dove off. He never missed but one of the last times I saw him do this when I was 10 or 11, his ring cut into his finger from the weight of him standing on his hands. Down he dove with a sliced finger and his ring had to be cut off and he needed stitches. … [Read more...]
Laura Rodley “Coyotes”
Coyotes Coyotes leave deep paw prints in new snow, traipsing east to west in search of the sun, so many miles before the dawn when they curl and sleep buried by snow and leaves. There are buck tracks too, a line alongside the coyote, each walking the same path as me, but not hunting each other just on the move while I search for sleep and wish for the lightness of breathing freezing cold air minus seven below, wearing my … [Read more...]
Laura Rodley, Donna Hilbert and a call for submissions here
Laura Rodley's chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Massachusetts Book Award nominee, won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award and an L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both these chapbook were published by Finishing Line Press. Past co-curator of Collected Poets Series and editor of As You Write It: A Franklin County Anthology, … [Read more...]