
This selection, chosen by guest curator Heather Leigh, is from mud blooms by Ruth Dickey, released by Harbor Mountain Press in 2019.
Take deep breaths
hold a pen
sit still
Oh sky, grant these poets safety: dry socks, lullabies, and soft lighting.
Grant these poets a lifting of insufferable griefs; wrap them
in shawls of spring winds. Bring muses to these poets: panting
harvest moons, fireflies winking beneath wet leaves,
the few brave stars that break city smog.
Cast yourself into gargoyles on office buildings
watch over alleys, doorways, park benches.
Blow soft into each ear during sleep:
You are essential as iodine, precious as infants, magnificent
as twisting live oaks. Send sun to glow within each gut,
shine from fingers and toes. Bless them with wonder for
each improbable dandelion cracking sidewalk. Bless them
with limitless paper and pens that never run dry.
Oh sky, perfect with bruise-colored clouds,
lick each raw wound with sunlight, knit together all that has been torn,
embrace the parts unseen and hidden, and rock these poets
through each long night, murmuring lotuses, blooming mud.


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