FOR FRIENDS WHO LOST BOTH CHILDREN

………………….God is so omnipresent. . . that God is an angel in an angel,
………………….and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw. . .
………………………….— John Donne, Sermon VII

If you wake at early light, rise,
go out, look toward the waning moon,
toward the twin stars balanced there.
Stand barefoot on newly greening grass;
know that weariness of earth, of care,
courses through you only, not the stars.

If you wake at early light, rise,
go out, harken to the echoes of
nursery rhymes and children’s laughter;
recall thousand-flowered summer
days shared on that lawn, days sacred,
days blessed, as stone, as straw.

If you wake at early light, rise,
go out, look for the twin stars there.

LINGERING OVER COFFEE

The young woman sits alone,
sipping a latte or cappuccino,
engrossed in a thick paperback,
Du côté de chez Swann.
Her dark hair and brown eyes
are striking, her lips a garnet bow.
She could be a young Odette,
but perhaps my daughter’s age,
so I do not let my eyes linger
as the morning sun bathes
her profile like the setting
of a Renoir household portrait.
She looks up. Her eyes slide
across my face without pause.
I am yesterdays and evenings,
remembrances of things past,
while her day is not yet noon.

Kevin Norwood was the winner of The Porch Poetry Prize 2020, and has poetry published or pending in a variety of places, including more recently Evening Street Review, The Iowa Review, Litbreak, The Magnolia Review, Nashville Review, Stonecrop Review, Soundings East, and The Tulane Review. He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English from the University of Virginia, where he studied creative writing with Peter Taylor and John Casey. He is a corporate attorney with a law degree from William & Mary, and currently lives in Brentwood, Tenn. with wife Vicki and a rescue pup, Lily.