Numbers of geese flew overhead and you laughed at my excitement, our mutual
relief
at the sight of the old farm still standing, the broken windmill, the
outlying buildings.
They held a future we dreamed aloud – a vegetable garden,
flocks of chickens and turkeys, thick as clouds and eager for morning.
Your fingertips relieved the ache that settled into my shoulders
so many years before I’d lost count.
The ache set into new places, almost forgotten, for a little while longer
for a full season of wonder
as we made final promises against a sun that kept disappearing
as if into a great crack in a wall of reoccurring rainbows. You told me
about the geese
that would land in the new pond and stay, the cows that were coming soon
spoke as if we had a real destination, a plan.
I am still holding onto that first day, descending over barren hills
borders between states disappearing into thin spiderwebs crisscrossing a map
sacred ash in a smoldering iron pot. I remember when you laid out
your theory of the sun-scorched, explained how we
were just like those clouds of birds that came to rest on the flat, golden
plains around us
their feathers taunting us our slow, tired bondage to earth.
It all made so much sense back then.
Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center
in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.
Ann Christine Tabaka was born and lives in Delaware. She is a published poet, an artist, a chemist, and a personal trainer. She loves gardening, cooking, and the ocean. Chris lives with her husband and two cats. Her poems have been published in numerous national and international poetry journals, reviews, and anthologies. Chris has been selected as the resident Haiku poet for Stanzaic Stylings.
Ann Christine Tabaka is better known by her middle name, Chris. She has been writing poems and rhymes since she was fourteen. She was an artist, a chemist, and a personal trainer. Her poems are in the Contemporary Group’s anthology “Dandelion in a Vase of Roses,” and the poetry journals “Whispers,” “The Society of Classical Poets,” “Indiana Voice Journal,” “Halcyon Days Magazine,” and “Scarlet Leaf Review.”
Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Interpreters House, Ink In Thirds, The Penwood Review, The Chiron Review and Rust and Moth. Her work also features or is forthcoming in a number of anthologies, including Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections 13. This year her poem ‘Sunday School’ was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Foxglove Journal 