Why I Write
Because yesterday, I saw a flock of birds,
circling silver-white, wings a sparkling
platinum ring, a proposal that can’t be denied.
Because I want to thread their music into lines,
or at least try. Because today my mind’s a
cellar, dimly-lit, with piles of torn fabric, and
I need to knit all my unrequited pieces.
Because somehow I still believe words
can answer our distances, our broken
relationships, every cracked window
distorting sight. Why can’t words be fire?
Why can’t they cauterize? And why can’t
I stop the urge to write when our world
declares it a waste of time? And on bad
days, so do I? Because those soaring
birds! They’ll never crash or change
or die, unlike you or I. Because the
page can be our sky.
*
Last Light of Winter’s Day
Flying crows fade within the oaks’ dark arms,
and the lake, flickering with what light remains,
like tinsel after a holiday.
Standing at my garden gate, I’m awakened to
loss again, how it shines with what’s missing,
with what’s missed.
Loss isn’t inside lab tests. It doesn’t live within
my will or all the doctors’ visits, but sparkles
inside its own darkness–
a coin peeking from wet dirt, water blinking
at the bottom of a well, and the oak branches,
blatantly stripped,
blatantly open, now hold the light of dusk,
a whispering silver, so soft, so brief,
so precious.
*
Jennifer Mills Kerr is an educator, poet, and writer who lives in Northern California. An East Coast native, she loves mild winters, anything Jane Austen, and the raucous coast of Sonoma County. Her poems are forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review and SWWIM. Say hello at https://jennifermillskerr.carrd.co/