A literary magazine for quiet pieces that find their own sources of light

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.

– Joyce Rain Anderson

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