Earning Grace
Mulch-covered footpaths
Laid out through
Black-green woods,
Beckon,
Demanding a penance:
Time.
Feet pad heavily –
Left, right, left, right –
Pushing forward through space,
Setting a pace
Unmatched by the mind. The path – a tether, now – is
Pulling
Out-of-sync.
Anxiety wants a breeze,
But it won’t take it. Still, music is in the trees,
Waiting for you to earn your hallelujah.
Hide and Seek
Referred Pain Occurs at a site
Other than an injury
You dreamt I was
A tattoo artist,
Inflicting my painful craft on you.
I asked what type of tattoo it was.
You could only remember the pain.
But how will we find its source?
I dreamt I was following you
Through a crowd.
You kept hiding from me
No wonder –
I would hide from
My pain, too.
Bio: Samantha Terrell, author of Vision, and Other Things We Hide From (Potter’s Grove Press, 2021) is a widely published American poet whose work emphasizes self-awareness as a means to social awareness. Her poetry can be found in many fine publications, and her work has been featured on Sunny G Radio Glasgow, Dublin-based Eat the Storms podcast, and “The Open Collaboration” all-acoustics show (Bristol, U.K.). She writes from her home in upstate New York, where she lives with her husband and their two sons.
feature photo by Casey Horner
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