April 2020

April famously is National Poetry Month; and in the world of the old normal, it was a month of special events and readings celebrating this art form we love. Perhaps, even more importantly - and now, poignantly so - it was a time of gathering and fellowship for poetry’s writers, readers, and listeners.

Poetry, of course, is with us every month of the year; and in this world we are coming to know as the new normal, poetry continues to provide balm and insight for one’s spirit just as much today as it did yesterday. That alone is reason enough to celebrate it now - no physical distancing required.

This month’s poet, Joan Alice Wood Kimball, carries readers out and away from the four walls of our quarantined abodes and into the osprey’s wild realm. Be well and know you are not alone.

Fish Eagle

by Joan Alice Wood Kimball

Sprawled on a rock I watch

the tree-walled pond

its commerce drenched

in heaven’s mirror.

An osprey mows the air

over and over

back and forth

across the still pool.

Head down

watching the dark water

over and over

she traces a grid

as regular as a chess board.

Over and over

patient as a grand master

then a hover

a check.

Fierce flight forward

driving aslant

she charges the surface

like a skipping stone.

Angling up

with a tail-jerking fish

in her talons

she climbs the air currents

levels off and lands

to work

over her prey

on the dead limb

of a living oak. 

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––Earlier versions published 2004 in Avocet, & “Early Light” (Kelsay Books, 2019).

Joan Alice Wood Kimball has published several books of poetry, most recently Early Light (Kelsay Books, 2019). A founder of the Concord Poetry Center and a member of the Powwow River Poets, she also runs poetry workshops in Concord and Wayland. Her limerick, “Cold October,” is inscribed on granite in Edmands Park, Newton, MA.