Laura Grace Weldon
New To The City
Hammer, anvil, and stirrup tremble in your ears.
Horns and back up beepers climb through layers of clothing
past skin, piercing you again and again.
Pavement caps a prisoned forest
where soil bears the city's heft
and seeds lie waiting for a lost sun to resurrect them.
You want to look at the crowd as you might a painting,
slowly, seeing each face.
Maybe sound doesn't disappear
but drifts outward in ever widening waves.
As you walk along ringing streets you sew notes
into the folds of this city's loud curtain,
imagine them fluttering through unknown expanses
like Earth's gift to a quiet universe.
Even if they fall far short
why not whistle?
Bio
Laura Grace Weldon is a is a book editor, non-violence educator, and marginally useful farm wench. She's the author of Free Range Learning and slow at work on her next book, Subversive Cooking. Her poetry has recently appeared in Christian Science Monitor, The Shine Journal, Iodine Poetry Journal, Atlanta Review, J Journal, Red River Review,flashquake, Mannequin Envy and Dirty Napkin. Her collection of poetry, titled Tending, is due out spring 2014. Visit Laura at lauragraceweldon.com/blog-2/.