洞月亮 Cave Moon Press April 2017

FEATURED POET: Joan Swift was born Joan Angevine and grew up in Rochester, New York, but has lived most of her life in the Seattle area of Washington State. She holds a B.A. from Duke and an M.A. in English-Creative Writing from the University of Washington. The last two of her four full-length books of poetry, The Dark Path of Our Names and The Tiger Iris, both won the Washington State Governors’ Award. Among her prizes and other awards are three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Grant, awards from The Washington State Arts Commission, The Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and a Pushcart Prize.

You can find her works also featured this month in the Seattle Review of Books

Sand, Rose Petals, Bones

I stand with my feet in the sand
beside the river, knowing the drought
has brought the two shores closer
,
looking between my toes for withered
rose petals, for the white talcum
of your ashes so heavy I saw them drift and sink

like a scarf pulled down in a strong wind.
It was your wish,
this very river, this kind of strewing.

The fracture line between air and water
is only a furrow, always changing,
the plow of separation pulled by a single animal.

Leaving Rio in the Rain

We stand on our separate decks as the lights
of Rio blossom in a misty rain.
I’m sipping vodka near the aqua of the pool.
This is how our lives will be from now on.
You are somewhere totally beyond my saving
while a thousand glowing flights of illumination
climb every hill around the harbor.
I want to go with you. They reflect in the water
where the ship leaves a scallop of wake as it leaves.
And again, lights in the air where each
shimmering drop is a kind of longing
to make descent beautiful, to wrap

whatever kills in tenderness.

WRITE YOUR POEM

With Joan dying not even days ago, I am a loss for words as to what coaching tip to leave.
Her words always offered a haunting, austere elegance in life and now they are imbued with a special glow.  They are offered in reverence.  More than ever, it is time to write your poem.

Poems are first about witness, and second about excellence, or form or line.  You are the only witness to your life.  Write the poems.  Thanks Joan.