In the light
before sunrise;
in the quiet morning hour
away from the city
where day does not end;
in the time when the light of the sky
is too faint for shadows to be
shadows and only some young birds
are tricked by the falseness
of this dawn; in the coolness
of the air and the dampness
underfoot, she walked.
Morning after morning.
Her family asleep
and unaware. Each cool wave
welcome upon her face, each
cloud a shade of weariness,
each solitary step a foreshadowing
of more.
It was how she prayed
in case God had not died
in childbirth.
After a career in writing, editing and communications management, Marsha Howland returned to her first love, poetry. Her poems have been published in The Bluebird Word, The RavensPerch, The Moon issue of The Black and White poetry series, the American Journal of Nursing, and Waves, the online anthology of A Room Of Her Own (AROHO). She recently won third place in the Massachusetts State Poetry Society’s contest with a theme of patriotism. As a senior at Wellesley College, Marsha won the college’s Academy of American Poets prize. Also at Wellesley, she had the privilege and joy of studying with award-winning poets David Ferry and Frank Bidart.