This Wednesday I will be speaking to the Frederick Chapter of the Maryland Writers' Alliance on poetry writing and publishing. I'm really looking forward to it. There seems to be a growing literary community in Frederick, and I'm delighted to have the chance to meet and talk with them.
If you're in the area, I hope you can make it!
6:45 pm, Frederick Coffee Co. & Cafe, 100 N. East Street, Frederick, MD 21701
XO - Virginia
Here's a poem from Touch to tide you over:
Planetary Light
I
As a child
I believed sleeping in moonlight
would make me beautiful
polish me brilliant
become my core and radiate
outward for the rest of my life.
I imagined people would look at me,
notice something unusual
but never recognize moonlight.
One night it woke me
shining silver-white through my window
as if I'd been chosen, as if it was looking only at me.
I could see the yard, my swing set
my room and its entire toy interior.
It was huge and even rounder
than my little girl face. Shocked and happy—
the moon had finally come to see me!—
I tried to go back to sleep
curled in my magic puddle of moon
thinking, my God, I'm going to be beautiful.
II
Coming out of school to a solar eclipse
I know they said don’t look directly
but how can you not?
The moon moved in, blocked the sun
with its perfect concentric self
bumping out the back window of the bus
where I sat to watch this celestial game of tag.
Lunar eclipses scared me,
the thought that I could be blocking the light.
Our black shadow like a cloud,
a dark blanket over the moon.
III
Some people believe
stars are the eyes of everyone gone before us.
These people, always on their best behavior,
would never embarrass their ancestors,
do anything to disappoint their mothers.
Stars are there in daylight too
crowded out by sun
but still in patterns we remember,
tell stories about,
connect with our own birthdays.
Sometimes, too, I've seen the moon
hidden beneath the day,
a pale ghost of itself.
These are the lucky ones.
They will never need another religion.
IV
Deep dark cities are what I crave.
No more blinding glare.
I want to stop electricity.
Throw the switch, cut off all the juice.
Let the neon highway diner signs rest,
close the 24-hour bistros,
service stations, all-night groceries too.
Turn off all the lights so we can see.
All over the world, cities are starved of stars,
the Milky Way, Northern Lights,
harvest moons bright enough to climb through your window
shine you awake.
I want to go out into skylight,
look into nothing but beautiful.
All their lives stars pour their light into streams
we wade in thousands of years later.
They send their only gift
their energy—their history—our light.
If we could do this together
a whole shining world,
all the earth
trading light for light.
