En Plein Air
I've taken my class outside
so they can write paragraphs
about any damn thing instead
of staying squeezed between walls
which they will do soon enough
once snow starts. Up north here
when the freeze falls we don't
get up from under it for weeks
and months of our lives in our
winter suits that look like us but
are our cold-weather aunties
and uncles. Now, while they
are still their own nieces and
nephews, they hand me their essays
instead of waiting till Tuesday
since they were so happy out
in the air. Fifteen minutes we
were alive in the breeze and sun.
Five days from now we'll all be
dead, but the dead are different
relatives, just our DNA gone
underground a while or for
the weekend, which is exactly
the way we will play it
tied inside on Tuesday.
- Laurinda Lind 2018
Laurinda Lind lives in New York's North Country, near Canada. Some poetry acceptances/ publications have been in Another Chicago Magazine, Antiphon, Antithesis, Comstock Review, Paterson Literary Review, Sonic Boom, and Stand; also anthologies Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan (New Rivers Press) and AFTERMATH: Expressions of Loss and Grief (Radix Media). In 2018, she won first-place awards for the Keats-Shelley Prize for adult poetry and the New York State poetry competition.
No comments:
Post a Comment