A Slim Volume That Means Everything

In Which My First Poem Appears in Print

One of my happiest moments in recent memory came when a small brown envelope arrived last week. In it were four volumes of the April issue of Beyond Words literary magazine. And there, on page 12, was a poem written by…me! I have published one poem in an online journal, and seen my nonfiction writing in various publications - including an anthology - over the years, but this is my first poem in a print publication, and I could not be more excited.

So, without further ado, here is a small star, unremarkable in the vast universe, but also the current center of my personal solar system. The magazine asked for a video of me reading the poem, so here it is, reluctantly, as I really dislike the sound of my voice. I do love the artwork they chose for the facing page, which you can see here, or, if you are so inclined, you can support the arts by purchasing a digital or print copy. Or you can just read the darned thing below. :)

I Drove Past Brookside

I drove past the road to Brookside on a frigid, wind-howling day and thought a poem about the turtles, which wasn’t of course about the turtles really. It’s true they might be a metaphor, or maybe the hibernating bees, the way their sweetness quiets, but their sting too, the way I read that honeybees huddle round the queen all winter and shiver her warm, but who knows what that means, split from the literal? I could parse the sharp and naked trees, the ice-shimmered pond, the husks and rattling remains of the summer. I could look for signs of an ending, signs of dormant, sleep-tranced life, signs of life itself. But I drove on, I drive on. We ebb and flow and our circles are not sized with the seasons, they have their own rhythm and reason. Sometimes We make perfect sense. Sometimes the wind blows intemperate. Sometimes what feels like winter is shot through with golden filaments of life. Spring always astonishes, and summer gloriously stuns. Fall is never the story of an ending, just beauty, beauty, and more beauty. If the air is melancholy today, or today and tomorrow and the next day, then the end of melancholy is fistfuls of sunshine bouncing and scattering in all directions. If we have fistfuls of sunshine bouncing and scattering in all directions today and tomorrow and the next day, then the end of fistfuls of sunshine is a quiet melancholy that has its place. Let the turtles tell Our story, or their own, or none at all. I drive on.