Poetry
Quiet Stampede
Joyce Rain Anderson
issue five
It’s the kind of rain that lulls you back to sleep
Thousands and thousands of falling drops
A quiet stampede on the ground
One continuous cloud
Opening its pores
A million tiptoes of watery beads
dance on leaves
Trilling gray treefrogs
Invite the rain to fill wetlands
Bullfrogs croak with joy
The softness leaves gently
Deep quiet sets in
Earthiness seeps into nostrils
A call to home
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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