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Poetry Well for July

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Poetry Well for July
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Poetry Well for July
Longtime islander Merna Ann Hecht founded and co-directs “The Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices” poetry project at Foster High School in Tukwila. She is an essayist, poet, teaching artist and nationally known storyteller. Hecht teaches creative writing and social justice classes at the University of Washington, Tacoma and will offer a class on the Poetry of Witness and Protest at Hugo House this summer. (Courtesy Photo)

The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by Merna Ann Hecht.

What Could Be Gone

A place where winter still has its way

with the pulse of bare branches,

where the song in a rocky creek

is frozen until it can sing again,

where what remains cannot be tamed,

where the taste of cold air is wild and holy.

In this place spring is still

an unruly green uprising,

and there is summer with its soft collapse

of rose petals, and cornstalks standing tall

offering praise songs to the sun.

And there is autumn with bright plumes

moving in October wind, once triumphant

flags, now waving a warning

at the ones who will not protect

this place.

Too soon, will only the stars

fling our sorrow back to earth?

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