July 2023
Angela Hoffman
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Bio Note: I began writing a poem a day at the start of the Pandemic, never imagining I would still be doing so today. My Poetry Collections include Resurrection Lily and Olly Olly Oxen Free (Kelsay Books). I placed third in the WFOP Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet category, 2022. I have always lived in the same small town in Wisconsin.

What If All the Long Words Were No More 

The sun would still shine. 
I’d pick the pinks, wet from rain,
place them in a vase, 
sip the mint leaves I’d steeped,
read a book, share the bread I baked,
pray, laugh, watch the bees make what’s sweet, 
give small things like hugs, my ear,
dig my toes in the warm sand. 
The sap would still run,
the rain would tap, the wren would trill. 
There would still be so much sky. 
I would watch the scythed moon change to full,
pick up stones, cup the soft-winged moth,
plant small seeds, watch them push through the dark, 
sleep on line-dried sheets, dance on the edge,
speak words no one hears but Him.

We Are Living In Hard Times 

Yet all this whimsy, all this fragility: 
the newly transplanted bleeding hearts,
the sky brushed baby blue,
the ladybug on the spout of the watering can,
falling into the birdbath as I fill it,
the chipmunk sitting on the wings of the garden angel, 
the tree frog that plops onto the cement by my feet
when I open the door to the tool shed, 
a tiny wren checking out the birdhouse with a new roof,
deeming it perfect as he brings in his first piece of grass—
softening what is so hard.
©2023 Angela Hoffman
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