Hallowed Ground, a Poem by Pat Anthony

Today a smoky haze hangs

over the trees drapes the fields

Wildfires from Canada

dropping down on the wind

and I think again of Maui

Lahaina where ash sifts on the wind

tiny bones gone to ground

so that the whole is a cemetery

of the unknowns still searched for

how to ever build again to walk

this ground where souls have vanished

to heal the gaping wounds gone black

with despair even as sun rises

and ground cools

believe then in spirits circling

in voices lifting just a breeze away

absent arms hugging and small hands

tugging fingertips: this is the only way

to move your feet and step

on what will always be

hallowed ground.

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Pat Anthony, frequently uses the land as a lens as she mines characters, relationships and herself. She finds poetry both release and compulsion as she contends with the challenges of bipolar disorder. A recently retired educator, she poems daily, edits furiously and scrabbles for honesty no matter the cost. Her poetry celebrates survival and draws upon not only personal experience but the larger metaphors of the natural world. Chapbooks include Middlecreek: Currents and Undercurrents, Orchard Street Press, and Between Two Cities on a Greyhound Bus, by Cholla Needles, (Amazon). She has work published and forthcoming in multiple journals.