You came much too soon,
swept from my womb in fits and starts
and then in a tidal wave
pushing irretrievable bits of me
out to sea.
If I were to paint your portrait now,
if I were to stand before the blank canvas—
all that white space expectant
in those sweet moments before pigment—
I would say that this work is too dear
and I would refuse to make a mark,
remembering how, in early June,
cottonwood seed flies in a flurry of floss,
stippling light from the overstory.
I would leave tubes of paint capped
and brushes untouched,
remembering how cottonwood trees
wave their children off each summer
as they parachute into dappled days;
remembering what cannot be held
and loving hard what has been loosed.
Shannon Vesely is a retired English teacher who’s written thousands of words in the margins of student compositions. Now, she’s writing the poems she’s carried in her head for decades. Her debut collection, The Way of Things, won the Nebraska Book Award for Poetry in 2022, and her second collection, Keeping Watch on Soap Creek, will be published in March 2025. Her blog (www.shannonsvesely.com) celebrates the uncommon value of common things. She resides in rural Iowa where she shares an acreage with her husband, an army of farm cats, and a pond of well-fed catfish.