Domestic Troubles
The cloud awoke this morning,
ashamed, knelt at the back door,
begging forgiveness. The wind was
hiding under a teacup—such
havoc when uncovered: papers
blown across the floor, pets blown
into corners. Sometimes our ties
are our undoing—can nothing
in this world be trusted?
The tender morning pulls leaves
over head, trembling.
Aubade
On mornings I walk
to the millpond searching
for the juvenile night heron
I’ve never seen but heard
second-hand was there
once. I do this morning
after morning. The reeds stand
at the shore, small fish. The clouds
reach their long legs into mire.
The sun, the fledgling sun,
spreads its wings wide and flies.
Vespers
A river’s sound is always the sound of leaving
The trees’ evening prayers floating past as leaves
A breeze is trying on voices in the reeds, a beckoning
The sky sheds its cloak of light and lies down
Danielle Hanson is the author of The Night Is What It Eats, winner of the Elixir Press Prize (forthcoming), Fraying Edge of Sky, winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Prize, and Ambushing Water, Finalist for the Georgia Author of the Year Award, and editor of an anthology forthcoming from Press 53 and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications. She teaches poetry at UC Irvine.