The honeysuckle was blooming,
supporting the swollen sky
and twisting the fence
away from the wild
roses, thorns and barbs holding
the still and secret nests.
I wore shadows
and walked with regrets,
following the paths of ants,
searching for that luminous face
in the thunderheads,
in the puddles,
in every web and fleck of rain.
The grasshopper has fled
his fields of thistle and red clover,
gone before the long legs
of summer could leap into fall.
This morning you, too, spoke
of leaving, love.
But how could I ever walk
through honeysuckle without you?
Â
BIO: A former Peace Corps volunteer in Afghanistan, Jacie lives with her husband in the Missouri backwoods, and is addicted to baking bread, walking through the forest, gathering mushrooms, counting stars, writing sonnets, and listening to the rain & acorns rattling the roof. Her poem, “Mazeway,” appears in William Baer’s 150 Contemporary Sonnets.
IMAGE: Zipporah, after Botticelli. John Ruskin, 1874