July 2023
/July is a busy month in nature which means it is a busy month on the farm – the two intertwined and inextricably linked. In garden and orchard, the farmers till, weed, plant, and cull; while all around them, in woods and wetland, grass and sky, the non-human habitants carry on with urgent summer labors of their own.
—Terry House, Poetry Editor
Turning Light
by Mary Pinard
What kind of underworld
weaving could they be working on
so busily? These ten gangly-necked
goslings, mottled shuttles plying
a zigzag wake in the reedy pond
as their sleek heads turn and angle,
then dip - here, there – appearing
to disappear through slits in the watery
surface, yet just as quickly they are
back up from some distant loom,
their bills draped with the thinnest
green strands that glisten, splash –
like tiny diamond stitches made
and unmade in this turning light.
Mary Pinard, a long-time plein air poetry contributor, is the author of two books of poetry: Portal (Salmon Press, 2014) and Ghost Heart (Ex Ophidia Press, 2022). She lives in Roslindale and teaches at Babson College.