FOR MARY OLIVER

by Sheila Koop


The full moon startled me last night.
Glaring and white against a navy sky,
an eerie almost ultraviolet light
bounced off our bathroom tile

and stripped me naked as the
tree outside the window where I raised my
fist against the light.

Relief arrived with the morning -
the sun shone, the snow bristled. 
Tiny berries on
the burning bush looked braver,
poised for the cardinal
who alighted on the fragile branches.
A celebration of amber red,
seeped into the air. We piled on layers

of wool and fleece
and stepped into the woods on our skis,
powder snow yielding to our bodies,
the cold as silent as the sky. 

This is where I heard your gentle voice -
in the space between the quill-like needles
of the white pine. Tiny gaps where crystals
of ice and snow catch sunlight.

A female deer hesitated in the woods,
shy,
her white tail tipped,
as if she could hear you too.


* * * * *

Sheila Koop writes poetry and short stories. Her inspiration comes from both natural and emotional landscapes and her early work has been published in the Wellington County Historical Journal, Rhapsody (2017 and 2018 anthology of Vocamus, Guelph). Her poetry and creative non-fiction have won first and second prizes for the Elora Writers Festival, the beautiful small town where she lives and writes.