As part of an ongoing project to expand resources that we can offer, I’ve been working with Dan Corrie to add to the collection of RN-related poetry at the RNA website. I enjoyed being introduced to several poets that Dan recommended, including Margaret Gibson, Linda Hogan, Janisse Ray, and Pattiann Rogers, plus some poems that were written by Dan, himself. I also enjoyed receiving these in several installments, and I found myself looking forward to the next poem-of-the-week.
The Unseen
by Linda Hogan
If you think I’m going to write about someone’s god
that’s a mistake. I am sitting by wild strawberries
not yet blooming. An emerald-green frog believes it can’t be seen
under the leaf. The insects it wants sing, also unseen,
and mourning doves in the distance
think I am not here with a silent song,
not even to interrupt morning’s eye wide open.
In the very near water, even with open eyes
I missed the leap. Fish, I didn’t see you either.
The reeds grow and I am missing that, as well,
and the animal that just broke a fallen twig.
On the large stone is a petroglyph
of a mountain goat. It is covered with lichen
and barely visible like the moth that appears to be stone,
in its refuge.
I see so little and know so little.
Perhaps that is a kind of wisdom,
but, if nothing else, at the very least
I am not alone in the world
of the unseen.