April 2015
In addition to Weathered Steps, I’m the author of In Both Hands and Into the Rumored Spring, both published by Ravenna Press, and A Steady Longing for Flight, which won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. My poems have also appeared in Clockhouse, Off the Coast, Crab Creek Review, and other journals. By day, I work as a technical writer and help out at the family winery. My website is: http://joanniestangeland.com.
Between Worlds
Her hair could be the green
of new shoots, the anemones,
the young leeks that first push
through winter’s crust
as though she is being pulled head-first
from the earth’s world of hearts and bulbs,
from the cool solitude of underground
and the constant dead.
Dirt clings to her eyes
and hoar diamonds glint in her tresses,
but the plum trees are ready to bloom,
the vernal rains persist,
glistening on leaf and palm.
Slowly, willing or not,
she enters these lengthening days.
-originally appeared in Weathered Steps (Rose Alley Press)
©2015 Joannie Stangeland