March 2016
I’ve been writing since I was eight, despite being told that I shouldn’t. Writing revealed too much. This is why I tell my students they should never be afraid to put the truth on the page. I’m a community college English professor, who alternately loves and despairs of her students. I’ve written lots of different things—newspaper columns, academic stuff, poems (including two chapbooks and a forthcoming full-length collection) and a couple of mystery novels, one of which will be published this spring by Barking Rain Press. At this very moment, my dog is sniffing through my trash for a draft of something to chew on. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
The Sparrows
“Do not be anxious about your life…which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”
Matthew 6: 25 - 34
In the afternoons when I do Tree Pose,
the sparrows come to feed
in defiance of the hawk
who has discovered my offerings
provide him easy pickings.
The French doors frame their flutterings,
small skirmishes over territories and rights,
seed and leavings sifting toward the deck
for squirrels to scavenge.
Balanced on one leg,
my hands at my heart,
I watch, slowing the greedy breath
into a kind of stillness like a tree.
I long to carry myself
light as a sparrow,
its small soft body
wedged under my heart, safe and warm
in its own little blood cave.
©2016 Laurel Peterson