August 2016

When the Answer Is Touch

          by Terry House

The next time

You are stumped –

The four fingers

Of one hand held up,

Your waiting thumb

Slumped across your palm,

Unticked -

Consider then

The worrisome itch

And the rush of ferns

Against your shins;

Consider the wind-whipped slap,

The drenching splash, and

The sudden, summer storm

That stung you in its wrath.

Consider the constriction

Of your throat.

You won’t forget again.

“When the Answer Is Touch” was created especially for the 2016 Plein Air Poetry Walk at Old Frog Pond Farm in response to the prompt: SPLASH!  Come to the farm to hear Terry House and 18 other poets read their original work in the settings in which they were composed on Sunday, September 11 2016 at 2 p.m..

Terry House is an educator, freelance arts reviewer, and Vice President of the Robert Creeley Foundation.