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Moonlight on the Yare by John Crome (c.
1816/1817)
Courtesy of the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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There were fewer submissions than usual this month, perhaps
because so many people were busy with holiday preparations and celebrations.
Nevertheless, there were several very interesting poems from which to choose. A
different judge might have made a different selection, but this is the poem I
judged best. I like the way it builds from the sentence fragment at the
beginning to the optimistic conclusion. I hope you like it also.
The Turn
That longed for
presence and peace:
always already here.
Apparent
in the way that moon
sends tendrils
of light through
reverent branches
and opens the beaks
of nightingales
to sing their
devotions. It doesn’t
require silence or an
absence
of thought. In the
midst of chaos,
fury of cyclone or
cacophony of conflict–
just beneath those
turbulent waves
and eddies, lies a
vast ocean of calm
fed by streams of
kindness. Unnoticed,
its underlying love
seems unmanifest.
Yet even the
slightest turn of the mind
in any moment reveals
it.
~ Carol Alena Aronoff
Bio: Carol Alena
Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in
numerous journals and anthologies and has won several prizes. She was
twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has published a chapbook (Cornsilk)
and 4 books of her poems and photographs: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk,
Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World as
well as Dreaming Earth’s Body (with artist Betsie Miller-Kusz). Currently,
she resides in rural Hawaii.
Aronoff retains
copyright on her poem.
Look for more prompts in 2019.
I wish you all peace for the new year.
© Wilda Morris
