January 2018
While my three children were young, I wrote just enough poetry to give me an inkling that I might have an aptitude for it, but I wasn’t brave enough to throw my earning potential aside until my family was grown and I’d worked for a number of years. As time went on, I came to regret not having devoted myself to writing much earlier in life. The “now or never” decision came about 20 years ago—my late-in-life career—and the process of creating a poem still gives me enormous satisfaction. I’m gratified that my poetry is widely published in the small press and equally gratified by becoming part of a larger community of writers. For my publishing credits:
lindamfischer.com
lindamfischer.com
Digression
The whole damn day—
and still it persists, blanketing
the evergreens inch by inch
until they bend to its weight—
smothered by snow: the Hinoki,
the row of cedars, yews
sprawling like fallen cakes.
I make the rounds and whack
them with a rake. What
would it take for the geese to change
their course mid-flight, the wind
swallow their cries and plow
them back to a creek swollen
with early snow? Or the sap
to gather itself for one last
shudder before the darkening day
surrenders to one long night?
I pitch myself against a shovel
as if it were a weapon, the snow
an anathema, as if I could stop
it long enough to clear a true
path—unswerving and deliberate—
from here to my eternal rest.
--first published in Ibbetson Street
© 2018 Linda M. Fischer
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