whispered to me through the day
slick-nosed, nudging
demanding my elusive attention
I looked up from my
busy ephemera, startled,
as if caught in mid-slaughter
all through the night the spirits
rattled around in me, after months
of silence
now they were calling me
and how beautifully
I failed words rattling
at my window, I dithered
in sleep-muddled conversation
with myself, finally sat up
blind in the dark,
felt for paper at bedside
scribbled words, fell back
into slumber this morning,
the paper was blank
I rubbed it with pencil
like a child detective,
tried to read the indents
I couldn’t make them out
a great poet passed
over us all last night
I heard her leaving
READ MORE
Mary Oliver, 83, Prize-Winning Poet of the Natural World, Is Dead [New York Times]
Donna Spruijt-Metz is a poet, translator, and Professor of Psychology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her first career was as a professional flutist. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in venues such as the American Journal of Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, Juked and Poetry Northwest. Her chapbook, Slippery Surfaces, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2019. She gets restless.
