A Sudden Wind

 

makes leaves tremble,

bends branches,

lifts my hair, tangles.

Enters my nostrils,

steals my breath.

I turn

against its surge,

look down;

dust whirls upward,

            blinds me,

grips my throat.

I taste it.

I am being whittled away

to join its force,

relinquish

resistance.

 

 

Guardian of the Night

 

An asteroid plowed

into Earth, belly-fire

and debris mingled,

coalesced into a sphere,

finding its orbit nearby.

 

The moon shines silver

or breathes sunlit gold,

peeks through darkness

into windows. Its glow

fills the hollows in my heart,

lights wings of imagination.

 

Guardian of my night,

continue your journey

an inch plus a year

toward the sun.

 

by Pamela Hammond

 

Pamela Hammond was born in Chicago, grew up in Southern California, and now lives in Santa Monica. For more than a decade, she worked as a Los Angeles-based critic for Art News based in New York. Her love of nature has led her to hike, backpack and travel, often to Northern California, and to Alaska, the Southwest, Hawaii, and New Zealand’s South Island, which became her home for almost a year. She completed two chapbooks, Encounters (2011) and Clearing (2012), produced by Red Berry Editions, Fairfax, California. In 2013, her work appeared in Forge, Assisi, Foliate Oak, Broad River Review, and Tulane Review. In 2014, her work appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Crack the Spine, Drunk Monkeys, Whistling Shade, Chaparral, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Westward Quarterly. In 2015, her work is forthcoming in Griffin and The Penmen Review. Her poem “Winter Walk” appeared in Crack the Spine’s Spring 2014 print anthology.

 

Listed at Duotrope
Listed with Poets & Writers
CLMP Member
List with Art Deadline
Follow us on MagCloud