Creation
In the beginning the earth was unformed and void.
—Genesis
On the first day I was a child playing alone in the sandbox.
On the second day I met you, and the world
shifted just a little.
On the third we conceived sons who were born in great waves of wonder.
On the fourth they grew tall and waved goodbye as they left
for college and the world.
And on the fifth we held grandchildren high in the air
and measured their progress in pencil on the closet doorframe.
On the sixth day we grew gray, wrote poems and went for walks that took forty years.
On the seventh day we rested on memories and laurels and riverbanks.
And whatever shall we do
next week, my dear?
Lorrie Wolfe
2nd Place award, Boardwalk Gallery,
Published in The Paths We Take; in Mountains, Myths & Memories
and The Language of Crows
Saudade for a Great Blue Heron
Dusky sun slants on slow, gray water.
A ruffling in the brush, a swoop of air,
a delft raincloud raises its fringed cape
and pulls forward as pewter wings arc wide.
A form, ancient and wild, rises. Gangling legs
trail as leathered sinews stretch.
Prussian-hued feathers, fold, sweep, extend,
hunched shoulders reach, recoil into ess-ed neck.
As the great blue bird bursts gravity’s bounds
The golden beak arrows toward the low horizon,
one thin black streak streams back from the crest.
Narrow head tilts, a great lift has begun.
“Take me with you!” I nearly cry aloud.
The wing does its work. He makes for the cobalt clouds.
Lorrie Wolfe
1st Place, Poetry Society of Indiana Award
Published in ENCORE – 2021 and in The Language of Crows
The Language of Crows
When you are far I hear you in the language of crows calling dawn into the lightening sky, inky night distilled into feathers, wings, onyx eye. In memory I see you clamber across branches after chittering squirrels and teasing crows. Watch your feet, I say, a talisman against broken bones. Now you can name every muscle and bone that held you strong, high enough to see the whole world as you perched in the maple's red canopy. You are fully fledged. Now the mountain holds you, bestows its old knowledge to your fingers, your sinews. Listen, it says. I will tell you what you have always wanted to know, in the language of seasons, of tea, of silence. When words fail I still hear you in the language of crows.
Lorrie Wolfe
Editor’s Pick — Published in Pooled Ink and The Language of Crows
Hummingbird pas de deux
Oh, Muse—
listen,
you forgot the hummingbird
when you handed out songs.
Instead, you bestowed
wings
thrumming
three thousand times a minute,
whirring tailfeathers in showy dive,
careening
a desperate downthrust
of iridescence
risking the splash of bright death
on a highway below,
wheeling up just in time
to hover before the desired mate.
I wanted to love you like that.
Lorrie Wolfe
Published in Welcoming the Muse and The Language of Crows