A Selection of Poems by Bracha K. Sharp

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Recalling the pond
turtles on a wooden plank
heron ascending

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Muggy summer heat
the cats curling and stretching
their pink tongues lolling

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Expanse of flowers
around a hollow tree trunk
a whole world inside

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Small fly on my arm
coming in for a landing—
how big is your world!

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Clinging and searching
In this everyday yearning—
Still, Your Faith in me

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Silently watching
My mother make food for others;
This quiet Mitzvah

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CONFLAGRATION

It’s like the tree was on fire,
a conflagration,

bursts of orange
and red shooting up above our
Japanese Maple, still green,

still waiting to change.

In the silence—

red leaves,
flowing,
the gasp of air,
the pause I needed to take.

There is nothing comparable to
a vision, so fleeting,
seen with eyes that
words try to express,
my own always trying to catch up to that moment,

over and over again.

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Bracha K. Sharp was published in the American Poetry Review, the Birmingham Arts Journal, Sky Island Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry (where she was a nominee for ONE ART’s nominations for Orison Book’s Best Spiritual Literature [formerly The Orison Anthology]), Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, Rogue Agent, and the Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. She placed first in the national Hackney Literary Awards; the poem subsequently appeared in the Birmingham Arts Journal and she was a finalist in the New Millennium Writings Poetry Awards. She received a 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Silver Medal for her debut picture book. As her writing notebooks seem to end up finding their way into different rooms, she is always finding both old pieces to revisit and new inspirations to work with. She is a current reader for the Baltimore Review. You can find out more about her writing by visiting: www.brachaksharp.com