Dim in memory a pair of shadows
stuffed full of vague longings
like two bats in a birdless country.
“Cucumber-flowers in bloom”
the young priest says, “this is the world
of change indeed!”
Mist opens day
in glaucous shadows frost closes it—
there in the garden the irresolute footprints
of crafty fox.
Didn’t I see you there,
your tail newly let down?
A simple question that shakes
my heart.
I am a wanderer too.
Oh when shall I return?
Jean A. Kingsley earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, and lives in Rochester, New York. She is the recipient of the 1995 Academy of American Poets Prize, a finalist for “Discovery”/The Nation and The Constance Saltonstall Foundation of the Arts Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in numerous national literary journals and she won a poetry book award for Traceries from ABZ Press in 2014, selected by C. D. Wright. She is a recent reviewer for the Antioch Review and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
