Poetry
(How I Pray)
Joyce Rain Anderson
issue five
What is it about the morning light
seeping through leaves to touch the earth?
ascending tree trunks so that they glow?
My breath taken
as it spills across the ground
touching pine needles, saplings, and ferns,
each embracing the warmth.
What is it about that light?
While another observes the “certain slant”
happening in the afternoon,
I seek the early morning radiance
of the rising sun.
Revealing openings in the woods,
piercing through the thick covering above,
climbing the trees,
taking over the shadows,
with grace.
What is it about that light?
About the Author
I’m a professor at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts where I teach first-year writing, rhetoric courses, Indigenous studies, and a portfolio course to help students prepare their work for a professional audience. I’ve also facilitated writing workshops in my community. I speak to students about observing what is around them, writing in journals, and then use that as ways to find poetry.
Most of my poems come from doing those things. In the morning, I rise early and watch light sifting through the leaves and find a poem there. When it snows, I am struck by the way the flakes reveal pathways through the branches and wonder about following them. These are the things found in my poems.
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