January 2021
Bio Note: I write to keep track of myself and because poetry gives me beauty and discovery
and a connection to the world. I write because my grandmother instilled in me the beauty of words. I can’t
imagine a life without poetry which has sustained me through dark times.
Because He Cannot Be Human, and She Cannot Be Donkey
His name is Jacob, his fur an unruly thatch. My sister is in love with him, brings him carrots, apples and such. He lives in a field down the road from her in Starksboro, Vermont. They are neighbors. I wonder if he dreams about her at night, if he’d like to snuggle with her at the old Mill House on cold evenings. He reaches so far into his barreled chest for a voice to greet her that it must take years for such braying as his, a voice filled with such sadness that only momentarily they will meet like this; two reaching across the fence to hold, to stay held, to be steadied by what fierce yearning as brings opposites together.
Originally published in Pacific Poetry
Rebirth
The lovely morning washed me clean. Doves and chickadees were singing in the rain. Water blessed my feet. I’m not altogether holy, nor would I espouse such. But the rain helps me feel I could come clean, in the long leaf of my life, say sorry to those I may have hurt. When morning wraps me in its fog as though earth were exhaling, I think wings could become me, not the angel kind, rather a raven with wings tucked, diving and rolling earthward simply because it loves what’s found here.
Originally published in MockingHeart Review
©2021 Dianna MacKinnon Henning
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