Ikigai –after Jackie Thomas’s mixed-media piece by the same title, a Japanese term meaning “a reason for being” I. A bowl has purpose in not only what it holds but what it doesn’t. II. One season the cleft in the rock cradles water; another, a nest. III. To serve the tree well, a branch needs neither the bird nor her woven nest. IV. Take the river stone: smoothed by water’s punishment or ceaseless practice? V. Whips of flagella alone don’t move the round cell of bacterium. VI. What is the turtle bereft of shell, and the shell bereft of turtle? VII. Without the canvas, no painting; without foliage, no true camouflage. VIII. Green caterpillar sips milkweed, dreams in orange-black, the colours of flight. Shanna Powlus Wheeler Shanna Powlus Wheeler is the author of two books of poetry, Evensong for Shadows (Resource Publications/Wipf & Stock, 2018) and Lo & Behold (Finishing Line Press, 2009). Her work is forthcoming in the anthology Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press, 2025). She teaches at Lycoming College and Pennsylvania College of Technology and lives in the Williamsport area with her family.
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February 2025
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