Since my poem came out in the Journal of Mythic Arts, it has been showing up on various websites. So, I suppose it should be on  my own. But, please do check out JoMA’s exquisite site. http://endicottstudio.typepad.com/jomahome/

Shapeshifter by Maureen McQuerry

There is a moment
when the creature seems to disappear.
Nothing remains, but a quivering
in the air, the invisible finger
that runs your ridge of spine

My students ask if it hurts
to become another. We’ve read
the stories of humans furred,
flesh erupting to wings, or scales,
gill-gasp of transformation.

I tell them some are stories of pursuit,
a dove answered with a hawk,
a hare with greyhound as reply.
Pursuer and pursued, their deft dance
that ended once with a grain of corn,
swallowed by a hen who birthed
the storyteller,Taliesin.

But what the students want to know is pain.
That remembered moment when
quills pierce skin, fingernails bleed
to claws. Beyond the window
winter’s first kiss startles the grass with frost.

I tell them yes,
there is always pain at birth or when,
our tent of flesh opens
like a door to the sky,
and something more, you must
lean close to hear
the single note of joy.

Today, Sam Green was named Washington State’s first poet laureate.  I’m embarrassed to say that I’d never heard of Sam until the announcement today. Sam has been a poet in the schools for thrity years. Along with his wife, Sally, he is editor/publisher of  Brooding Heron Press. They live, write and publish on Waldron Island. Okay, I’ve never heard of Waldron Island either. It’s a small island in the San Juans with few people, about 104 in 2000, and few amenities. But the island is rich in hosting the state’s first poet laureate.

Cheers to Sam and to WA State for recognizing that poetry matters.

Last night my son asked me what I thought of “cellar door.”  I puzzled over the questions for a few minutes trying to come up with any associations to cellar doors. Could he be talking about a new musical group, referring to the cellar door in the Wizard of Oz, or the scary portal where ghost stories often begin?Finally I did what any self- respecting mother would do, I googled “cellar door.” And what I found surprised me. J.R.R. Tolkien thought it the most beautiful combination of sounds in the English language. Annie Dillard disagreed, voting for “sycamore.” Is this why Stephen King has a photograph of a cellar door on the cover of his book On Writing? It is true that some words compel just by the combination of sounds like dusk, and thistle. In all of these words, the sibilant “s” is the culprit our ears long to hear.Cast your vote for the most beautiful combination of sounds in the English language here. Writers take note–perhaps titles with sibilants sell more.