How Long?

How Long?

You peek out from behind clouds

that part, setting fires

among the blue-gray skies

just before sunset.

How long will you stay with me?

I hear you in the quiet space

just before sleep

yet you rarely appear in dreams.

But morning's first light arouses

new buds on lavender

causes calla lilies

to unfurl as the sun ascends.

I know it’s you who tempt

spiny seeds to lift and crown

my bed of coneflowers --

and you are there

as these nod and flutter

in late-morning wind squalls

below white-feathered fog.

By noon wind grows calm;

through the open window

comes a long cool breath of earth,

promising to lift me

from this place of wanting.

How long will you stay with me?

 

Mary Anna Kruch

Mary Anna Kruch is a career educator and writer. She mentors new teachers and leads a monthly writing workshop. Recent poetry appears in Ariel Chart, The Remembered Arts Journal, River Poets Journal, Mark Literary Review, Trinity Review, Credo Espoir, Wayne Literary Review, and the anthology, After: Stories about Loss and What Comes Next. Poetry is forthcoming in an anthology entitled Chrysanthemum; a short story is forthcoming in Persephone’s Daughter.  Her first poetry collection, We Draw Breath from the Same Sky, was published this summer.