​At Holy Wisdom Monastery, by Jackie Langetieg

The Fox and the Heron, by Franz Snyders (Belgium) before 1657

​At Holy Wisdom Monastery

Where is a blue heron balanced on one leg.
Do you see a fox standing on the hill.
I am in paradise, but the rain shatters my dream.

If I  still wore my warrior spirit, I would dance
to lunch through the sparkling grass, but my warrior grows 
toothless and is afraid to melt—like mother’s warning.

If I still wore my warrior spirit, I would hike
these muddy trails, careless of worms drinking
wet air, stay out too long, fry like spaghetti.

If my warrior spirit was here, I would write a poem
rescuing a blue fox with one leg caught in a trap, left
by some self-made Davy Crockett. I would write him 

into the creek, caught in a web of plastic molds for beer cans,
stepping on a fork’s curved tines tossed into the creek 
with his Taco Bell bag of limp hot sauce packets.

But I’m an old lady whose warrior visits only in dreams
of flying down the wind behind a boat, jumping the waves,
and dropping one ski.

Jackie Langetieg
​
This poem was written with Ulla Thynell's  (Finland) Forgotten Garden 2021 in mind. We invite you to click here to see it.

Jackie Langetieg has published poems in literary magazines: Verse Wisconsin, Blue Heron Review.She’s won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She is a regular contributor  to the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. She has written five books of poems, including Letter to My Daughter, and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold.