I have three poems in this anthology of poetry by 103 female poets all over the world. The poems have been translated into Albanian by Dr. Jeton Kelmendi. The anthology is available as an ebook. The English title of this anthology is Colors of Thoughts.
Like I’ve said, little squirrel gets around. One poem is “A Squirrel’s Front Teeth Never Stops Growing”, a haibun which was voted Publication of the Year 2024 on Spillwords.
The other two poems are “Love Blitz” and “Shell Game”. These two poems first appeared on Prolific Pulse Press on Medium. One sonnet is about hikes with my husband and the other is a love sonnet to him.
Shell Game
He’s a sure-footed mountain goat,
jumping, leaping, climbing up the peaks—
Electric Pass, Longs Peak, Mount Ouray—
any rugged terrain to the sun.
I’m a box turtle, slowly ascending
or just resting in the shade or by a pool
He returns often to nudge me along
and off he prances out of sight.
I lose my way on the Maroon Bells Trail,
taking a wrong turn where other turtles head and
sliding down a slippery slope onto patterns of prints
sculpting a map onto the forest floor
I amble into the Aspen shadows
looking for my love.
***
Love Blitz
I love you as the thumbprint on your coffee mug
or a strand of hair in your birthday cake
or the peach fuzz on your chin
or the fallen leaves you scoop up every year.
My love for you is a long road trip to the arctic
in a car with no heater
The salted roads corrode our chassis
I sing our love like a crow
tattling on a wandering dove
or a squirrel barking for sunflower seeds
or a river flooding the wetlands
and carrying off debris from our last storm.
My heart is a cup holding your hot cocoa
I sip you till you’re gone.
©Barbara Leonhard
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