Margaret Hasse Verse-Virtual 2016 April

April 2016

The Twin Cities of Minnesota has been my home for many years. Our region is fortunate to have a marvelous community of poetry writers and readers fostered by The Loft Literary Center, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Saint Paul Almanac, Minnesota Book Awards, McKnight Foundation, Graywolf Press, Milkweed Press (which published one of my books called In a Sheep’s Eye, Darling), Garrison Keillor with The Writer’s Almanac and his Common Good Books store, and many other organizations, individuals, and enterprises, large and small. My fifth collection of poems, Between Us, will be published in 2016. For more information, please visit my website:www.MargaretHasse.com

The House May Be Burning

But keep writing.
Write by the glow of the windows,
the roof alight
like a red-haired girl,
you in the back yard, safe.

The ladybug’s flown away.
Recall her flit and armored crawl.
To the last breath of summer.
Upon the circular of winter.

The man may have left.
This doesn’t stop
the writing. Between
the pages, a slight blur.
The man may have been old
and ill, or young
who stopped trying
to be with you.
Ghost days.

You’re swimming across
a deep lake with a soul
you’re making.
You save the swimmer,
the sailor,
the drowned,
the damned
and the beloved.

- from In a Sheep’s Eye, Darling