May 2022
Bio Note: I am a second-career poet, having spent my adult life till 2020 teaching German and Spanish at Northern Kentucky University. In a way, I am still walking through life looking for just the right words, enjoying the thrill of the hunt and the mystery of the power of language. I've never been nominated for a Pushcart but derive great joy knowing that my first chapbook is being used in the creative writing classes at the Hoboken Shelter. My poems are published in various on-line and print journals and my first poetry collection Between the Rows, (Shanti Arts) will appear in summer 2022.
Blinded Sight
My childhood eyes vanish
under a bandana as I play
at training our dog
to be my seeing eye.
If I could blink
back into those blindfold
moments, I would sink
into Cleo’s paws, crawl
through dandelion suns
to chickweed stars
and soak into the night
of Piedmont soil, eyes
wide to the wise odors
ears thankful for satin
dankness, nose twitching
toward the color of clay
content beneath the day.
March 2022
If only today’s hours would reap
release from tears for R., K., S., and D.
and please, please, for Kyiv.
I imagine it would feel
like a branch springing back
as birds take flight—
lightened, surprised, even grinning
at the thought of those hope-laden claws
and the tickle of their release.
©2022 Nancy K. Jentsch
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