Okay. Honored. I Will Take It. When a Poem Arrives from a Writer You Admire & It's About You...Well, You Sort-Of Gush

    I will take this. Long story short, Kwame introduced me to Ann E. Burg's work.  I read it and called Susan James in Pensacola, who replied, "Isn't she brilliant?" and continued, "Guess who introduced me to her? Doo!" (Doo is an angel on earth...she's a retired teacher now, but I've never met anyone quite like her - so giving, so caring, so smart, so nurturing, so precious). 

Meanwhile, I've never met anyone quite like Ann E. Burg or Susan James, for that matter. The Great Whatever is too good to me, so I'll take the poem sent to me in an email yesterday morning because the writer, poet, & novelist couldn't focus on her work in progress and needed to pen a poem for Susan and me instead. Happy to know brilliant writers like her also get distracted by side projects.

I love the way the universe works at times.

              Soul Mates

            for Susan and Bryan

                by Ann E. Burg

one didn’t expect it—

this warm sunshine

on my face,

despite the bitter cold,

the brutal silence, 

the ice-pierced air

of winter.

earlier, when hills crowded 

with knit hats

and crimson cheeks,

when whoops and shrieks

crackled

beneath wooden slabs

and rusty runners,

one expected it,

or at least, 

one climbed the hill,

one hoped.

here, in this barren land,

there are no hills

and the wind blows fierce—

full of ice. full of fury.

how strange to suddenly

feel sunshine on my face.

to hear a merry crackle 

converging on the snow.

I'll be anyone's sunshine to offer a merry crackle on these post-hibernal days that lead to spring. What a beautiful email to receive. What an honor....I'm okay entering this Thursday with such a poem.