AMULET

Finally, what do you hold dear?
The calm and quiet of green.
I wear it as an amulet. In these
clamorous times, a hum, a whisper.
A bed laid down amidst the roar.
I want no other song, no other
resting place. Green knows
my nature and my name.

*

Leah Johnson is a Washington, DC poet. A member of the Surrey Street Poets, her work has been published in Green Mountains Review Online, The Healing Muse, Oberon Poetry Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Mothers Always Write, US Represented, The Aurorean, and the anthology Such Friends As These. She is a 2017 Best of the Net nominee for her poem “The Goldfinch” in Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her debut collection, Bindweed, is slated for publication in July 2021 by Cherry Grove, an imprint of WordTech Communications LLC. She is a co-host of the WordWorks Café Muse Literary Salon. In previous incarnations, she was a member of the Writing Studies faculty at American University, taught piano, and co-founded Dumbarton Concerts, now in its 43rd season.