The Mother Gives Us
the sky and flaxen goldenrod in sheaves
tied in fragrant bundles to remind us
of earth from which we came. The mother
tells us this whole year sings in the cattails,
the woody rushes by the pond
hidden off dry gulch road, where larks
stitch their nests. She gathers the stems
of song in her mantle, draws up soft signaling
grasses of low mountain valley, tucks us in
with little hinged grasshoppers and purple butterflies.
She takes up the weaving of lullaby,
in gentle croon of creek and insect wing.
We feel it swathe us, wisp and feather
of sky, wild rumpling tones of hawk and owl
gathered in close, the good thread of story she hums,
spirals of daring flight, the moon crossing slow to silver
fullness, spilling milk all over the field.
Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books). Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review, Whale Road Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, River Heron Review, EcoTheo Review, Poets Reading the News and other publications. She can be found online at laurareecehogan.com