New London Public Library Entrance

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Gifts
by Lana Orphanides

 

Along the pathway of yellow grasses

the blue river lightly hanging on the sky,

I search for secret things, a bright winged bird

who flies then isn’t, as if it never were,

the great blue heron sitting in the barren tree

disguised as branch but listening to the air,

 

the prison cell where someone keeps my poem,

the one with the dark door, someone I

do not know, will probably never see. We are

unknown to one another yet

she walks through my prison bars

and offers me her key.

 

I am so slow to rejoice in the voice of grass,

the wisdom of lilacs under the dried buds,

the leaf that forms a heart

and lies in the V of the birch,

the love that lingers hidden

everywhere underneath the edge of cloud.

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Poem and poetry box by Lana Orphanides.She taught English and Creative Writing at New London High School for eighteen years. She received her M.A. from Wesleyan University where she wrote a collection of poems for her thesis project. She has been the opening voice at The Mystic Arts Cafe, and the featured poet at the Hygienic. Lana is a member of the Connecticut River Poets and has published a chap book, “Sea and the Sound of Wind, poems of Greece.” She is also a member of “Cerebellum”, a group which gives workshops combining art, poetry, and dance. Recently she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.