For My Sister . . .

My sister Barbara celebrates her birthday today; therefore, I offer her love and all my best wishes for a great day! In addition, I thought this would be an appropriate time to post a poem I wrote for her last year, “For My Sister After Her Surgery.” I’m pleased to note the poem was published earlier this spring in Tidal Basin Review, and it also will appear in my forthcoming collection of poetry, Tinted Distances, which is scheduled for release in 2011.

FOR MY SISTER AFTER HER SURGERY

. . . . . —for Barbara


Late May morning in Indiana,
. . . . . muted music plays on a neighbor’s

radio, birds murmur nearby, fill
. . . . . a willow at the edge of the meadow.

Somewhere from vast farmland
. . . . . beyond, corridors of cloud dust drift

and dissipate in a tractor’s wake.
. . . . . We await afternoon’s promised rain;

yet, for now, nothing but a flat
. . . . . backdrop of blue. Even the pair of tall

evergreens beside the yard barn
. . . . . remain still. Their stiff thin shadows

begin to recede into themselves,
. . . . . withdrawing under a bright windless

sky, all dark giving way to light
. . . . . on this day, as if driven into exile.